You are free to apply to TOPS even if you are not a student in the TDSB. However, you MUST have a Toronto residential address at the time of submission. While students living outside of Toronto may APPLY it is unlikely there will be spots to offer, since the TDSB optional attendance policy states that the first offers MUST be made to Toronto residents (Living in a M area code). With the number of students that apply it is highly unlikely that we would get to step 2 of the optional attendance policy, which allows offers to GTA applicants ONLY if all Toronto applicants have been offered a spot first!
If you do not have a Toronto address at the time of submission and will change to a Toronto address in the future, there will be a section on the student profile to indicate that.