Last verified: 9 November 2026. The allotment rules below are ✅ CONFIRMED from the AISSAC Standard Operating Procedure issued by the Sainik Schools Society (Tier-1 source) and the AISSEE 2026 Information Bulletin, as used in our earlier counselling guides. The AISSEE 2027 Information Bulletin (released 3 November 2026) carries the current vacancy appendix — the exact seat count for each school and category comes from that appendix, not from this article. Where a rule is pattern-based, it is labelled 🔶 EXPECTED.
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Every year I meet parents who treat the AISSEE result as the finish line. It isn’t. The result only decides whether your child enters the counselling. Which school your child actually gets is decided by AISSAC, the All India Sainik Schools Admission Counselling run by the Sainik Schools Society on pesa.ncog.gov.in.
AISSAC is online, it is free, and it usually runs for about six rounds. The way it allots seats is not mysterious once you see the four steps in order: qualify, rank, filter, match.
Before any seat is discussed, a candidate must qualify in AISSEE itself. The rule, from the Information Bulletin, is simple: at least 25% marks in each section and 40% in aggregate. The 25% and 40% conditions do not apply to SC and ST candidates.
Qualifying is a gate, not a ranking. A child who scores 45% overall has cleared the gate — but so has a child who scored 85%. Both enter counselling; the difference shows up in the next step.
After the results, the Society prepares merit lists from the AISSEE scores. Your child’s position on that list is the number that matters most. And here is the part parents don’t use enough: the Society publishes the marks of the first and last candidates called for medicals, school-wise and category-wise. Those published cutoffs are your reality check — they tell you, for each school and each category, what score actually got a seat last time. When you fill your preferences later, those numbers are the map.
A merit rank alone doesn’t allot a seat. The rank passes through three filters at once. For the 33 established Sainik Schools, they are:
| Filter | Rule |
|---|---|
| Domicile | 67% of seats for candidates domiciled in the school’s home state/UT; 33% for candidates from other states/UTs |
| Category | SC 15%, ST 7.5%, OBC-NCL 27% reservation |
| Defence wards | 25% of the remaining seats for wards of serving personnel and ex-servicemen |
| Girls (Class 6) | 10% of vacancies or 10 seats, whichever is more |
The domicile filter is the one that quietly decides most outcomes. If you are domiciled in the state where a school sits, your child competes inside the 67% pool. If you are from another state, the same school puts your child in the 33% pool — a much smaller door for the same school. That is why a good school 50 km away in your own state is often a smarter top preference than a famous school two states away. The domicile certificate you submit decides this, not the city where your child wrote the exam.
Take a hypothetical school with 100 Class 6 seats: 67 home-state, 33 other-states; within the whole school, 15 SC, 7–8 ST, 27 OBC-NCL and 10 under the girls’ quota. That is illustrative arithmetic to show how the percentages stack — not a real school’s seat matrix. The exact seat count for each school, class and category is published in the vacancy appendix of the Information Bulletin, and that appendix is the only authoritative source for this cycle’s numbers. But the logic is the point: your child’s rank is compared only against the other children in the same pool — same domicile group, same category. A rank that looks modest nationally can be a winning rank inside the right pool, and a strong rank can still miss a school if that school’s pool is oversubscribed.
With the filtered merit lists ready, AISSAC matches them against your preference list. Within your quota and category, the system allots the highest school on your list whose cutoff your child clears.
Then the rounds begin. If round 1 gives you preference number 5, rounds 2 to 6 can slide your child up to number 4, 3 and beyond, as seats open up. Two things follow from this, and both matter more than parents think:
The full strategy for ordering preferences — including three templates for different score bands — is in our guide on how to choose school preferences in AISSAC counselling. The short version: order by genuine preference, fill the maximum number of preferences allowed, and mix dream schools with realistic ones. Rounds can only upgrade your child among schools that are actually on the list.
The matrix above covers the 33 established schools. New Sainik Schools admit partly through a 40% AISSEE route that works differently, and the vacancy appendix treats them separately. If you are including them in your preferences, read our explainer on the New Sainik Schools model and check the appendix before ordering them. For school-by-school numbers, see the Sainik School Seats 2027 matrix, and for the full reservation breakdown, our SC, ST and Defence quota guide.
Allotment feels far away — the exam is on 31 January 2027 and counselling comes months after that. But two of the three filters are decided now, while you fill the AISSEE form:
A parent once told me his son missed a seat by two marks — and then, in the same breath, that he had put only three schools on the preference list. The two marks hurt. The three schools were the real mistake.
How are seats allotted in Sainik School counselling? AISSAC allots seats by AISSEE merit, filtered through the domicile rule (67% home-state, 33% other-states in the 33 established schools), category reservation (SC 15%, ST 7.5%, OBC-NCL 27%), the defence quota and the girls quota, and matched against the school preferences you filled. Allotment happens round by round, usually over about six rounds.
What marks do you need to qualify for Sainik School counselling? A candidate must score at least 25% in each section and 40% in aggregate in AISSEE. The 25% and 40% qualifying conditions do not apply to SC and ST candidates. Qualifying only makes you eligible for counselling — the actual seat depends on your merit rank.
Does domicile decide which quota my child competes in? Yes. In the 33 established Sainik Schools, 67% of seats are for candidates domiciled in the school’s home state or UT, and 33% for candidates from other states. The domicile certificate you submit decides this, not the city where your child wrote the exam.
Can my child get a better school in a later counselling round? Yes. AISSAC runs in rounds, and if you stay in the counselling after an early allotment, later rounds can upgrade your child to a higher-preference school on your list as seats open up. Exiting early locks in the first allotment.
Is there a fee for AISSAC counselling? No. Registration for AISSAC counselling itself is free. You pay the school’s admission fee only after a seat is finally allotted and you accept it.
Do New Sainik Schools allot seats the same way? Not exactly. The 67/33 domicile rule and the reservation matrix described here apply to the 33 established Sainik Schools. New Sainik Schools admit partly through a 40% AISSEE route that works differently — check the vacancy appendix of the Information Bulletin before ordering your preferences.
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