Description: School choice policy has been adapted to many comprehensive school systems in Europe during the past 10 - 20 years. School choice policy is examined in the publicly owned and governed comprehensive school system of Finland. Parental choice as well as some pupil selection were introduced in the big cities of Finland in the mid 90's. At the turn of the year 2000, half of the age group transferring to the 7th grade applied for a place in an other than catchment area school in the capital city and on average one-third in the four case cities (Seppänen 2003). The purpose of the paper is to examine the nature of families' choices by asking: What kind of motives did the families have for school "choice"? Do these reasons have connections to the parents' education, socioeconomic status or income level. Are the reasons for "choosing" connected to the structure of the local school markets and if so, how? Methodology: The data consists a representative postal questionnaire with open questions for families whose child was transferring to the 7th grade of comprehensive school i.e. to the lower secondary at the turn of 2000 in the four case cities. The average return rate was 64%. The data consists of 1523 returned questionnaires. 98% of the respondents answered to the open ended question of why the child was heading to the particular school next school year after primary school. It was also asked whether there were any particular reasons why she/he was not going to the allocated neighbourhood school. The written data were classified systematically. First, the relationship between the reasons for applying to a particular school and the parents' background was analysed statistically. The reasons were statistically connected also to the popularity of the schools determined by (another data) the statistics of application flows in each city. Secondly, the long descriptions of school choice processes by the respondents were analysed in detail heading to interpretations with the help of literature on class reproduction (e.g. Gewirtz ym. 1995; Ball 2003; van Zanten 2003). Conclusions: The complex motives for applying to or ending up to particular school had connections to the position of the school in the popularity hierarchy of the local education markets as well as to the parents' education and socioeconomic status. The most common reasons of families to prefer a particular school for the 12-year olds were practical and social. Very few families mentioned the "quality" of teaching or the school buildings. The following reductions are offered as some examples of the connections. Those who applied to other than the allocated school because of an emphasised class that selected pupils were typically the higher educated parents with upper employee position and high income. These upper fractions of middle classes - particularly measured by mothers background - but also lower middle classes wrote about school's reputation meaning e.g. "the certain atmosphere" as reason to apply to an other than allocated school. The most rejected schools were evaded mainly due to their bad reputation that was often connected to the families' fear of such pupils who make disturbance. Unwillingness to go to such neighbourhood schools that mainly lost pupils was rarely connected to the absence of convenient educational emphasis in the families' writings. The data supports strongly the suggestions that families see schools as social fields defined by the other pupils.