diff --git a/studio/frontend/src/config/training.ts b/studio/frontend/src/config/training.ts
index 3d986f1e89..f8fc09c353 100644
--- a/studio/frontend/src/config/training.ts
+++ b/studio/frontend/src/config/training.ts
@@ -131,3 +131,17 @@ export const MODEL_TYPE_TO_HF_TASK: Record<ModelType, PipelineType> = {
   audio: "text-to-speech",
   embeddings: "feature-extraction",
 };
+
+
+export const PRIORITY_TRAINING_MODELS: readonly string[] = [
+  "unsloth/Qwen3.5-2B",
+  "unsloth/Qwen3.5-9B",
+  "unsloth/gpt-oss-20b",
+  "unsloth/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B",
+  "unsloth/Qwen3-0.6B",
+  "unsloth/gemma-3-4b-it",
+  "unsloth/embeddinggemma-300m",
+  "unsloth/orpheus-3b-0.1-ft",
+  "unsloth/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
+  "unsloth/Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct",
+];
diff --git a/studio/frontend/src/features/onboarding/components/steps/model-selection-step.tsx b/studio/frontend/src/features/onboarding/components/steps/model-selection-step.tsx
index 5e981fef3b..ab41214d20 100644
--- a/studio/frontend/src/features/onboarding/components/steps/model-selection-step.tsx
+++ b/studio/frontend/src/features/onboarding/components/steps/model-selection-step.tsx
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ import {
   TooltipContent,
   TooltipTrigger,
 } from "@/components/ui/tooltip";
-import { MODEL_TYPE_TO_HF_TASK } from "@/config/training";
+import { MODEL_TYPE_TO_HF_TASK, PRIORITY_TRAINING_MODELS } from "@/config/training";
 import {
   useDebouncedValue,
   useGpuInfo,
@@ -101,7 +101,12 @@ export function ModelSelectionStep() {
   const { error: tokenValidationError, isChecking: isCheckingToken } =
     useHfTokenValidation(hfToken);
 
-  const resultIds = useMemo(() => hfResults.map((r) => r.id), [hfResults]);
+  const resultIds = useMemo(() => {
+    const ids = hfResults.map((r) => r.id);
+    const prioritySet = new Set(PRIORITY_TRAINING_MODELS);
+    const rest = ids.filter((id) => !prioritySet.has(id));
+    return [...PRIORITY_TRAINING_MODELS, ...rest];
+  }, [hfResults]);
 
   // Match Studio behavior: only show exception signals (OOM/TIGHT) in training flows.
   const vramMap = useMemo(() => {
diff --git a/studio/frontend/src/features/studio/sections/model-section.tsx b/studio/frontend/src/features/studio/sections/model-section.tsx
index 72d6abcf59..5f115e160f 100644
--- a/studio/frontend/src/features/studio/sections/model-section.tsx
+++ b/studio/frontend/src/features/studio/sections/model-section.tsx
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ import {
   TooltipContent,
   TooltipTrigger,
 } from "@/components/ui/tooltip";
-import { MODEL_TYPE_TO_HF_TASK } from "@/config/training";
+import { MODEL_TYPE_TO_HF_TASK, PRIORITY_TRAINING_MODELS } from "@/config/training";
 import {
   useDebouncedValue,
   useGpuInfo,
@@ -172,7 +172,10 @@ export function ModelSection() {
     if (selectedModel && !ids.includes(selectedModel)) {
       ids.push(selectedModel);
     }
-    return ids;
+
+    const prioritySet = new Set(PRIORITY_TRAINING_MODELS);
+    const rest = ids.filter((id) => !prioritySet.has(id));
+    return [...PRIORITY_TRAINING_MODELS, ...rest];
   }, [hfResults, selectedModel]);
 
   // Filter out GGUF models — they can't be used for training