By NH charter law, if the number of applicants exceeds the school’s student body capacity, a public lottery will be held, with a wait list developed from the lottery overflow.

Upon receipt of your completed application, an assigned Family Lottery Number will be sent to you by email prior to the Lottery date. On Lottery Day ALL Family Lottery Numbers from that year’s lottery shall be selected at random. Students will be accepted by grade, as their Family Lottery Number is selected, up to the number of slots available in each grade level.

After the maximum number of available slots is reached, the remaining applicants will be selected in the same random fashion, and then placed in order on the wait list, by grade. The wait list from the newest Lottery year, will go below any existing wait list for each grade.

The Lottery is complete only once every applicant’s number from that year’s lottery has been pulled.

The Lottery is run by the school’s Admin Team and each year it is officiated by a public figure who is not associated with the School.

Our 2026 Lottery will be held on Wednesday, March 11th, 2026.

Our Lottery Enrollment Application is available each year between early-January and mid-March, during the Lottery Enrollment Period only. The 2026 Lottery Enrollment Period opens on Monday, January 5th, and closes on Friday, March 6th.

Mill Falls currently offers a 7-year Public Montessori Elementary School Program serving students in grades K-6.

Please note that the majority of our open spots during our lotteries are generally in the Kindergarten classroom, and in our Upper Elementary Program (grades 4-6). However, we do lotter for each grade annually.

Every year during the Lottery Enrollment Period we hold several Lottery Information Sessions. If you are interested in enrolling your child in our Lottery, we STRONGLY encourage you to attend one of our Lottery Information Sessions. We publish the Lottery Information Session Schedule each year on our website during the Lottery Enrollment Period. Typically, we hold 4 sessions between January and March.

The schedule for the 2026 Lottery Information Sessions can be found here.

Each year, our Lottery Enrollment Application is made available to interested families during the Lottery Enrollment Period.

The 2026 Lottery Enrollment Application is on line here and is also available on paper, as requested.

Please note, we do not accept applications outside of the Lottery Enrollment Period. 

Yes. Families will receive an acknowledgement email within approximately 7-10 days of our receipt of the application. The email will indicate the School’s receipt of the completed lottery enrollment materials and note the Family’s Lottery Number (reminder: only one Lottery Number is assigned per family, per lottery year).

If you do not receive the email, please contact admissions to confirm your email address. It is imperative that the school have a correct email for parents/guardians on file.

Please remember to fill out an individual application for EACH child you enter into Lottery. Your family will be assigned just ONE Family Lottery Number each year, regardless of how many children you enroll in the Lottery.

On Lottery Day, when your Family Lottery Number is selected, all of your children in the Lottery are automatically drawn. The children are admitted by grade as long as there is space in their grade level. If there is not a space in the appropriate grade(s), they will be placed on the wait list for their grade.

If you have already entered a child in a previous Mill Falls Lottery and that child is still on our wait list, please DO NOT re-enter that same child in this year’s Lottery.

When your younger sibling is of school age (to enroll in the Lottery – all children must be 5 years old by September 1st to enter Kindergarten), you will be required to fill out a Lottery Enrollment Application for the younger sibling.

Once one child is enrolled at Mill Falls, any of their siblings who are of school age AND has a Lottery Enrollment Application on file at school (received before the close of the Lottery Enrollment Period for that year), will be added to the sibling wait list for their grade.

The sibling wait list get priority over the general wait list. However, please note that this does not guarantee the sibling(s)’ admission.

If there are multiple siblings for any single grade and not enough openings for all in that lottery year, a sibling/grade-specific lottery will be held on Lottery Day to determine the admission plan and related wait list.

It is hard to know how many lottery entries we will have each year. We generally have had a great deal of interest in our program since our first lottery in In 2012 which included 269 applicants for our then 93 spots. In the years since, we have had between 155-225 applicants.

Unfortunately, we cannot answer that question. All completed Lottery Enrollment Applications from new families are given an equal chance at admission in this lottery system.

Additionally, individual circumstances of enrolled students may change, and spots may become available for children on the wait list prior to the start of each school year, or at times during the school year.

As permitted by the State of New Hampshire, and noted above, there is a sibling preference as Mill Falls is committed to serving all children in a family if the family wishes to place multiple children at our school and there is space in the child’s grade.

All parents/guardians of students enrolled in that year’s Lottery will be notified, by phone or email, of the outcome of the Lottery. This notification will indicate the child’s/children’s admission to the school, or an assignment to the wait list. For a student to be fully enrolled, families must complete the enrollment process by the stated dates.

All children enrolling at Mill Falls will need to meet basic criteria to be admitted and meet the School’s stated deadlines for the following.

1. Parents/Guardians must complete and return a signed Letter of Intent to Enroll, stating their child/children will attend Mill Falls by the form’s stated deadline. If that is not completed by the due date, that spot(s) will be forfeited.

2. The student must be a resident of the state of NH; proof of residency required for admission.

3. Parents/Guardians must complete and return the State mandated health forms.

4. A copy of child’s birth certificate must be put on file at school by the child’s first day of school.

5. Forms which are part of our standard student files, must also be completed by the stated due date(s).

For students with an IEP (Individual Education Program) attending Mill Falls, individual student plans are implemented in partnership with the student’s district of residence, which maintains the legal responsibility for ensuring the delivery of programs and services described in the IEP.

Parents/Guardians of students with IEPs who receive a place via the lottery are required to attend a meeting prior to the child starting school with the child’s sending school district, the family, and MFMCPS to determine student needs in the MFMCPS setting, as per NH Charter law.

Every Family Lottery Number assigned upon receipt of a completed application will be randomly drawn on Lottery Day, even after the available slots are allocated. The Lottery will determine the order of that Lottery year’s wait list.

If there is a wait list for that grade from a previous year’s lottery, the newest wait list will be placed beneath the existing wait list.

The wait list is rolled over from year-to-year, which means, for example, that this year’s kindergarten wait list, becomes next year’s 1st grade wait list.

Should a spot become available in a classroom at any point during the year, the Admin Team will utilize the wait list until the spot is filled.

Students on the wait list who do not enroll after we have offered enrollment, surrender their spot on the wait list and are placed on the declined list. Should they be interested in enrolling at a later date, they would need to enter the next scheduled or future lottery.

No. Please do not enroll them in more than one lottery.

If you want to confirm that your child or children are on the wait list, please send an email to Admissions@MillFalls.org.