CISCE council list format, in Excel with checks.

What a council list is

“Council list” is what schools call the list of candidates they register with the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations. CISCE's own regulations don't use the phrase. They talk about three steps:

• Registration. Candidates are registered online in Class IX for ICSE and in Class XI for ISC. Registrations after the due date aren't accepted.
• Correction of entries. The school can see its registered candidates online and ask for corrections, with supporting documents.
• Confirmation of entries. Before the Class X or Class XII examination, the school reviews the entries and confirms them online.

There's no official council list format. What matters is that the details you enter on the CAREERS portal are right, so this template follows what the registration asks for and the rules in the regulations. For a step-by-step walk through the portal, see the CISCE registration guide.

Dates in the 2028 regulations

These come from the ICSE and ISC Regulations for the 2028 examination, which this session's Class IX and Class XI students will take. The regulations don't print the registration date itself. CISCE gives it to schools each year, so follow that.

ICSE also says a candidate can't take a subject in Class X that they weren't registered for and didn't study in Class IX. So the subjects on the council list are, in practice, the subjects the student will write.

Why names and dates of birth matter most

The certificate shows the candidate's name and date of birth as the Head of the School certified them at registration. After that, the regulations allow a change only if the Head certifies, with reasons, that a mistake was made in the registration form, or that the school record was changed on the strength of a birth certificate or a document from a competent authority. Otherwise the candidate needs a court order.

After the result, a date of birth correction needs attested copies of the birth certificate, the admission form and the admission register, and an affidavit. CISCE takes the application only within three years of the result. It also says the date of birth must match the record the school submitted at registration, “which has been verified by the parent”.

That's the reason for the parents' signature column. Mother's, father's and guardian's names are checked as carefully, because the regulations ask for those to be entered correctly too.

The subject rules the sheet checks

For ICSE, every candidate takes at least six subjects:

• Group I: English, a second language, and History, Civics and Geography. A candidate can take two second languages only if one of them is Hindi.
• Group II: two or three of Mathematics, Science, Economics, Commercial Studies, a modern foreign language, a classical language and Environmental Science.
• Group III: one subject, or two with one from Section A and one from Section B.

Some pairs aren't allowed together, such as Economics with Economic Application, Commercial Studies with Commercial Application, and a modern foreign language in both Group I and Group II. The Subjects sheet lists every pair from the regulations, and the ICSE IX sheet names any it finds on a row.

For ISC, a candidate takes English or Modern English, and four or five electives, so no more than six subjects in all. English with Modern English, Physics with Engineering Science, Mathematics with Applied Mathematics and Robotics with Artificial Intelligence are among the pairs that aren't allowed.

Older CAREERS guides for schools show an exemption from the second language, with documents uploaded to support it. The 2028 regulations don't describe it, so the sheet only checks that an exempt candidate has no second language filled in.

What the Excel file does

• Setup holds the school, its CISCE code, the year the session starts and the date to work out ages on. The exam year follows from the session.
• ICSE IX and ISC XI have one row per candidate, with room for 150. Subjects are picked from drop-downs for each group, so the spelling always matches.
• The checks at the right of each row list anything missing, a name with a small first letter or extra spaces, an age that looks wrong, the wrong number of subjects in a group, a pair that isn't allowed, and a photo or signature still to upload. The Status column says “OK” or how many things are left to fix.
• Counts shows how many candidates took each subject, which helps when you plan sections and teachers.
• Subjects holds the lists behind the drop-downs and the pairs that aren't allowed. If CISCE approves another language for your school, type it in an empty row there.

The age check is only there to catch a mistyped year. CISCE sets no age limit for either examination, so change the ranges on Setup if they don't suit your school.

Getting parents to check it

The PDF is a blank council list of 24 rows on two A4 landscape pages, with the columns parents can check: name, gender, date of birth, parents' names, second language and the Group II and Group III subjects. There's a column to write a correction in and one to sign.

Fill it in from the Excel file or by hand, and ask parents to check every name letter by letter against the birth certificate. Make each correction in the admission register first, then on the portal, and keep the signed list with your registration papers.

How to prepare the council list

1. Fill in Setup. Enter the school, its CISCE school code, the year the session starts and the date to work out ages on.
2. Enter each candidate. On the ICSE IX or ISC XI sheet, type one row per candidate, copying names and dates of birth from the admission register.
3. Pick the subjects. Choose every subject from its drop-down, group by group.
4. Fix the red cells. Read the checks at the right of each row. Keep going until every Status says OK.
5. Have parents check it. Print the PDF list, fill it in, and ask parents to check the details, write any correction and sign before you confirm entries.

Sources

We read each of these on 21 October 2026. Rules change, so check the latest circular before you rely on a detail.

1. ICSE Regulations, Year 2028 (Chapters II and IV, and correction in academic records), CISCE.
2. ISC Regulations, Year 2028 (eligibility, choice of subjects and correction of entries), CISCE.
3. ICSE Registration Module V 2.0: User Guide for Schools (archived copy), CISCE, 2014.