Blog · California · October 2, 2026
Thirty-nine California private schools have a deadline before December
Ask most families when private school applications are due and they will say January. For thirty-nine California schools, something is due before December.
There are forty-three of these early dates in all, between October 1 and November 30. They are not all the same kind of date, and the difference matters.
Most are interview guarantees. Apply by this day and the school promises your child an interview. Harvard-Westlake sets November 13. Archer and Windward set November 12. Brentwood sets November 20. Buckley sets November 9. Nueva sets November 3. Campbell Hall sets November 16.
Miss one of those and your child is not out. The school simply stops promising the interview, and you are later in the line.
Some are early application tracks with something attached. St. John Bosco closes early commitment on October 31, and that application is free. Westridge sets November 1 and drops the fee to $30. Carondelet sets November 2 for its early-bird fee. JSerra and Sonoma Academy both set November 1 for early decision, which is binding.
And a few are simply the deadline. St. Ignatius closes on November 16. Archbishop Riordan closes November 20. Junipero Serra closes November 20. For those schools there is no January at all.
A handful more are for families already connected to the school — siblings, faculty children, alumni families. Oakwood, Wildwood, Archer, Sierra Canyon, Crossroads and Milken all have one of those dates in October or early November, and they come first on the calendar for a reason.
So the honest answer to "when are applications due" is that it depends on the school and on which door you are walking through.
Here is the useful part. October is still early enough to do something about all of it. The pieces that take the longest are the ones other people control: a teacher recommendation, a transcript request, a counselor form. Those can be asked for this month and collected quietly while you decide.
Our California tracker has the dates for 265 private schools. Each date comes from that school's own admissions page, with a link to where the school says it, and we re-check them on the first of every month through the season.
Pick your schools and it merges everything into one timeline, earliest first, so the November dates stop being a surprise in November. It is free, at highschoolreach.com/california.