‘Unauthorised access’: Parents hack selective school results website

The NSW Education Department has launched an urgent investigation after parents and students gained early access to the results of this year’s selective schools test.

More than 100 selective school candidates secured “unauthorised access” to a department website which allowed them to view their own results, including if they had successfully gained entry to a school and if they were placed on a reserve list.

Parents shared screenshots of leaked selective school results on Chinese social media platform XiaoHongShu. 

Official results of the fiercely competitive selective schools exam are due to be released on Friday afternoon. A record 18,500 students sat the test this year, competing for about 4200 spots in the state’s high-achieving selective schools for year 7, 2025.

A department spokesperson said once authorities became aware of the issue the website’s “outcomes URL” was shut down, and confirmed it would be unblocked when outcomes are officially released on Friday.

“No one was able to access data other than their own. Investigations are continuing, but the issue has now been fixed. All results will be published as planned on Friday,” the spokesperson said.

“Selective school outcomes have not yet been fully finalised. Authorised outcomes will be released as planned on Friday at 3pm.”

A screenshot of selective school results accessed three days before they were due to be formally released.

Screenshots of the leaked results and instructions on how to access them were shared on Chinese social media platform XiaoHongShu.

A message seen by the Herald included details of how to manipulate the webpage’s URL to access an individual student’s results.

One parent, who spoke anonymously to not identify their child, said discussion about the loophole began to appear on parent WhatsApp groups on Monday.

“Rumours started [on Tuesday] that people who were able to see their results were those who received an offer,” she said.

More than 18,000 students sat the selective schools test for entry next year.Credit: Robert Pearce

“It meant parents have been staying up all night, constantly refreshing the page to see the results like everyone else. This is causing intense anxiety for both children and parents.

“The Department of Education needs to provide us with an explanation. Some parents and students are celebrating already while many of us are worried and anxious. They’ve been tutoring for a long time just for this day,” she said, adding that the information had spread via in Chinese apps, study forum and chat groups.

Ros Wolfers, who runs Swot Shop tutoring at Baulkham Hills, in Sydney’s north-west, said limited places at the state’s selective schools – and an increase in applications – had led to intense competition and anxiety about results.

“I’m appalled but not surprised this happened because selective school results aren’t as transparent as they once were. It’s making parents more anxious,” she said.

“It’s seen as such a major prize if you can succeed, and parents are counting down the days until results are out.”

Australian Tutoring Association chief executive Mohan Dhall said more people are applying for entry for relatively fewer places in the system. Despite population growth, the number of places in selective schools has remained the same.

“That engenders more and more behaviour like this to arise from that extreme competitiveness,” Dhall said.

“As soon as one person finds a way to access results it will spread like wildfire on social media.

“Any selective school coaching centre that criticises this behaviour might need to consider whether their business model encourages this.”

More than 100 students’ draft offers were viewed.

Several years ago, the department stopped publishing minimum entry scores for each selective school after wellbeing and privacy concerns were raised by students and parents.

However, education analysts have previously warned that recent changes to stop publishing selective school entry cut-off scores have backfired, with tutoring companies preying on the lack of information to spruik their services.

In 2022, the NSW Education Standards Authority was forced to investigate after some HSC students were mistakenly able to access a preliminary set of results for each course. A similar issue in 2021 saw some HSC top achiever results published early online.

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