Scholarship preparation goes wrong at the first step more often than at any later one — because families prepare for the wrong test. There is no single scholarship exam, and the one your child sits is decided by the school, not by the system.
Australian scholarship testing is dominated by three organisations: ACER, Edutest, and Academic Assessment Services. They are private assessment providers, not government bodies. A school commissions one of them, and that decision determines what your child sits.
Broadly, all three assess reasoning and written expression rather than pure curriculum recall — but they differ in how sections are divided, how long each runs, and what question styles appear. Those differences are exactly the part that format-specific practice targets, and exactly the part you cannot guess.
You will find pages elsewhere setting out section counts and timings for each provider side by side. We have not reproduced one.
Unlike the NSW placement tests, there is no single authoritative page publishing these formats, and they vary by school, year level and sitting. A table that looks definitive but is assembled from secondhand sources is worse than no table — it invites families to prepare confidently for a structure their child may never see.
Named on the school’s admissions or scholarship page. If two schools are in play, check both — they may differ.
Scholarship entry points vary by school. The test a Year 6 student sits is not the one a Year 8 student sits.
Set by the school, not by any central authority, and often earlier than families expect.
Some providers allow one sitting to be considered by multiple schools; some do not. Ask before paying to sit twice.
It is worth being explicit about the contrast. Government selective high school placement has one published format, one statewide calendar, one application portal, and a stated rule that no late applications are accepted. Scholarship testing has none of that uniformity. Preparation strategies that assume a single fixed target — the reasonable assumption for the Selective test — do not transfer directly.
No. Scholarship testing in Australia is set by three main providers — ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research), Edutest, and Academic Assessment Services (AAS). Each has its own format and question style, and an individual school chooses which one it uses.
From the school. The admissions or scholarship page of the school you are applying to states which provider it uses and when its test is held. This is the only reliable source, because the choice is the school’s and can change between years.
Partly. The reasoning and written expression demands overlap across providers, so general work is not wasted. Format-specific practice, however, is only worth doing once you know which test your child is actually sitting — otherwise you may be rehearsing a structure they will never see.
Different purpose and different authority. The Selective High School Placement Test is run by the NSW Department of Education for entry to government selective schools, with a single published format and a fixed statewide calendar. Scholarship exams are commissioned by individual private schools from private providers, with formats and dates that vary school by school.
No. There is no statewide scholarship calendar equivalent to the Department’s placement test timeline. Each school sets its own dates, which is why the school’s own page is the starting point rather than any general guide.
Last reviewed 2 August 2026. Where official materials do not state something clearly, this guide says so rather than fill the gap. Rules and dates change — confirm against the source before acting on them.
