As the "dreaded date" approaches -

"The Crypt is holding a series of informal Year 6 Parent Information Talks – where parents can make informed choices regarding their selection of a Grammar School place after the published results on Monday 1st March.
For more information see our event listing or contact Sue Wales on 01452 530291 or email: enquiries@crypt.gloucs.sch.uk
www.cryptschool.org"

Good luck everyone!

This is fascinating. The Crypt webpage has some FAQs linked from http://www.cryptschool.org/open_day/ including:

There were so many people at the Open Days I thought it would be more difficult to get in – is this the case?
No, parents need to remember that there is approx. 1020 grammar school places, which is spread across the 7 grammar schools. Even if your child’s rank seems low, it isn’t out of the approx. 1800 who shared their scores with The Crypt.

The email from Crypt after the test said:
Those ranked between 1 – 600 are considered to have achieved a qualifying standard...Our ranking is based on all students who sat the test in all grammar schools across Gloucestershire. A total of 1819 students chose to share their results with The Crypt School and these form our overall cohort for consideration.

So it seems likely from this that Crypt have overestimated demand from parents and their position in the grammar school preference order, by aiming for the top half of the grammar cohort (assuming most people shared their results with Crypt), so they've not been able to fill their places.

The question for me is what this means for the other grammar schools! My musings last October were based on the assumption that Crypt would attract people away from STRS, HSFG and perhaps SHS. If this hasn't been the case, then there may have been a more muted effect on the market for boys' places than I originally predicted. Roll on next Thursday when we find out. And good luck to people who'd previously thought they'd missed out on Crypt, as it looks like there's now another chance.

I reckon you are spot on Lysander. In fact I predicted something like this back in October - see the following thread for a discussion on it.
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=52207&start=20
I think there is a perception that it is really hard to qualify for a GS place in Gloucestershire, but it actually isn't, not once you have crossed the first hurdle of coming from a home where your parents put you in for the test. Whether you qualify for the GS your family had in mind, however, is a different point.

Unfortunately schools have to reassure parents as some still do not know how to fill in the CAF form. Parents whose children receive a "low" rank from any of the schools are not convinced they should put that school as an option - preferring to put a "safe" comp first, which could be good news for those who do know how to fill it in!

Fingers crossed... We have a decent second option, but Marling would just be sooooo much easier (not to mention cheaper)

Given that Crypt's admissions cut-off for previous years were as follows (I don't have 2017's last admitted):

In previous years, places have been allocated down to the following ranking:

2016 Down to rank 370
2015 Down to rank 350
2014 Down to rank 340

And this year, they are attempting to fill an additional 30 places, you would think that if they were still only admitting boys, their last admitted would be around 370*1.25, or 460. But given that STRS is admitting an extra 30 boys, we should probably round up our estimate of Crypt's last admitted number to 500. And now consider that they are attempting to admit equal numbers of boys and girls - in that case, they should have qualified the top 1000 rather than the top 600.

Well, as a parent with ds opting for STR as the ranking was much better than Crypt, roll on March 1st! Last year we were awaiting my dd’s school allocation, but felt much more certain of the outcome even though her ranking was further down. This year I feel like a nervous wreck and have been ticking off the days since 1st January! I’ll be going through it all again in 2 years and just pray that there are no major changes in the system between now and then!

So do you think they will have unfilled places on March 1? That would be interesting.

It would appear they didn't fully allocate last year..

https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/15286/secondary-allocation-day-2017-v2.pdf

That will always be the scenario now as girls will be included in the rankings for Crypt.