School admissions: half of pupils rejected in some towns Councils in London also reported that large number of pupils were rejected. Across the capital's 33 boroughs, a third of children on average failed to secure their favoured school, while one-in-20 missed out on at least six - the maximum number of choices in London. In Wandsworth, 46.5 per cent of pupils failed to secure their favoured school, while numbers were as high as 45.5 per cent in Hammersmith and Fulham, 44 per cent in Southwark and 43 per cent in Kensington and Chelsea, It comes as data shows that some of London's academies and free schools - independent institutions free of council control - received up to nine applications for every place. Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of parenting website Netmums, said: "We are seeing more areas around the UK becoming increasingly short on secondary school places." The sheer scale of rejections in some cities is likely to lead to a sharp rise in the number of parents lodging official appeals. Matt Richards, of schoolappeals.com, said rising demand for the best state schools "probably down to people who can't afford private school anymore." Under a new admissions code - introduced for the first time this year - mothers and fathers are given 20 days to challenge school allocations, twice the original timeframe. He said: "What we're noticing this year are far more parents willing to go down that road [to an appeal] because they don't want the comprehensive, they want the good grammar." Last year, almost one-in-six children were turned away from their first choice school. Yesterday, the Telegraph obtained data from 50 local authorities - a third of those nationally. In almost six-in-10 council areas, more pupils secured their first choice school this year compared with 2011. It is likely to be down to a drop in the number of applications in many areas caused by falling school rolls. A further quarter of councils reported a decline in the number of 11-year-olds gaining their first choice, while numbers remained the same in other areas. Local authorities including Manchester, Poole, Trafford, Southend-on-Sea, Wokingham and Wolverhampton reported that at least a fifth of pupils missed their preferred secondary school. The largest number of first choices was recorded in Cornwall, Derbyshire, Hartlepool, Herefordshire, the Isle of Wight, North Somerset, St Helens and Tameside, where at least 98 per cent of pupils gained their preferred school.