Grouping students in order of preference

Hi everyone!

I am stretching my Excel skills to my limit to make my (teaching) life slightly easier. I'd appreciate any help!

I have a group of 35 students who I need to split in groups of 3. Each group is taught at a different time. For example, group 1 is taught on Tuesdays from 10-11:30 am. Group 2 is taught on Wednesdays from 10-11:30 am, etc. So, roughly, 11 groups in total (2 groups will have 4 students and that's ok) - corresponding to 11 different tutorial hours.

I'd like to have the students fill in an excel listing their top three groups/tutorial hours.

I imagine that the first column would be titled 'name' and the three columns to the right would be titled 'preference 1', 'preference 2' and 'preference 3' - - the students would they would fill in the three most convenient groups for them next to their name.

Relying on this data, is there a way to sort the students in 11 groups of 3?

I attached a spreadsheet I found in another thread here (cannot post the link due to site rules)

The problem with this spreadsheet is that columns F, G and H don't seem to be very helpful for the kind of sorting I'd like to do.

Thank you!