middle school students can rank any school in the city

By Joyce Szuflita

This is a change. For many years, 5th graders have only been able to rank schools where they lived and attended school, and in addition a finite number of boroughwide or citywide schools…but not every school in the city.

The DoE has announced that starting this season, MYSCHOOLS will allow you to rank any school anywhere on your application. This seems like a big deal, but is it? The important distinction is that the schools’ priorities are remaining the same. For example, if a popular school has priority for District 2 students and residents, a student applying from outside of the district is considered for a seat after ALL the students and residents in District 2. If the school can easily fill with people from their own district, you are never getting a chance from out of district.

Occasionally very big and popular schools may have seats available after all district students have been placed. That will be an opportunity for people across the district line.

Also, sometimes strong schools are not recognized by their own district students, but other people may really like them relative to the options they have in their own districts and may feel like a small commute is worth it.

Sometimes, because of the vagaries of geographic boundaries, you might be closer to schools in the next district than you are in your own. Now you can rank them.

Is this a great thing? The answer is “it depends.”
One question that has been asked and so far remains unanswered: Does the same priority remain for “students and residents”? This equal priority has been misunderstood and is constantly mistaken by DoE employees and parents alike. It has always been the case that STUDENTS AND RESIDENTS HAVE EQUAL PRIORITY. It is assumed that Residents are preferenced. They NEVER HAVE BEEN. I don’t see any good reason for this to change, and like other years, people are telling me second hand that they have heard that “students” are not considered with the same priority as residents. I will believe it when I see it.
We need to wait until the MYSCHOOLS directory is finished being edited, but if it continues to say, “Priority to students and residents” - then take them at their word.

MIT is weighing in on high school admissions

By Joyce Szuflita

OOOOWW! MIT. How fancy!

Over the years, first we were so thankful for the crumbs: the clumsy Applicant : Seat ratio to guess at our chances at popular schools that were 30:1.
Then parents forced the DoE to reveal the random number, but they didn’t build context.
NOW MIT to the rescue with a very large but (to my limited mind) not terribly complicated combination of data to tell each student if a specific school is a long shot, medium shot, or pretty good shot. (Also no guarantees in the fine print.)

They are taking the number of seats at each program, and their admissions priorities, and an applicants screened group or Ed Opt group, and their random number and whether they are Gen Ed or SWD and feeding it into Big Blue to tell us if a school is a safety or a reach.

“MySchools now projects for each applicant if they have a low, medium, or high chance of getting an offer to high school programs. This gives families more information about the estimated chance of getting an offer to each program of interest, making it easier for them to build a balanced application.”

I should be grateful, and I will be if it helps parents make a good, balanced list.

the data from ranking unlimited high schools

We can only imagine what the data will look like next year. It has been reported that only 38% of students rank 12 choices on their applications. Shocking. How many students will actually take advantage of this “unlimited” app?

What is the likelihood:

• that the applicant : seat ratios for the few wildly popular tiny schools will go WAY up, so that any data will be artificially inflated?

• since 62% of students don’t rank even 12 choices, that there will still be kids who still don’t get a placement from their list?

• That people will complain with indignation that they got their “10th choice” when they placed 9 schools on their list that they had almost no chance of getting into?

The data that has been comforting and consistent for almost a decade - that around 75% of students get one of their top 3 choices, and that about 85% get one of their top 5 will be out the window. We’ll see.

Whatever you do, however many schools you list…make sure to have a couple of worthy safeties at 1:1 or 0:1 on your list. They are out there.

ranking more than 12 schools on your high school application

By Joyce Szuflita

The DoE has just announced that you can rank more than 12 programs on your application. A successful application isn’t necessarily about volume. If ‘more’ means lots more schools on your list that are crazy long shots, you haven’t improved your chances of getting into one of them. The thing is that it also doesn’t disadvantage you.

It is reported that only 38% of families rank 12 choices on their high school applications. I doubt that allowing folks to rank more will encourage the 62% to look more deeply.

It is my guess that the people who will list more schools will be students who are auditioning for several talents. They may be able to easily fill all 12 traditional spots with audition programs in a couple of talents. This unlimited list allows them to try for all the audition programs they want AND add some regular non audition programs to their list.

It may also encourage families to add schools that might have been considered “wasted spots” on their previously limited list. There will be beloved schools (maybe popular 6-12th grade programs or schools that give a geographic priority that you are not in) that seem like such crazy long shots it wouldn’t be worth including on a limited list. Now, why not?!

Perhaps the benefit to listing some wildly out of range schools will be that if you get placed at a school that is lower on your app, you will automatically be placed on a wait list for those crazy popular schools. The thing is that if those schools have geographic priorities and/or if they are screened, you will still be placed on the wait list in the appropriate priority and Tier.

The cruel challenge provided by the DoE is - how on earth to get a decent understanding of more than 12 schools in 8 weeks with holidays in between. Thanks a lot?!