Location still school factor
A ‘cub-ble’ of cuties in Queens Blaz flip means kids living nearby can get admission edge
City high schools can still give admission priority to students who live in their surrounding area or borough, Mayor de Blasio announced Tuesday — a reversal of a pandemic promise to eliminate all “geographic preferences” at city schools.
It’s part of a new set of admissions rules for the city’s middle and high schools that education officials released Tuesday following months of speculation from anxious parents and educators.
The city overhauled the complex admissions system last year to account for the pandemic’s upheaval of state exams and school grading systems — metrics many schools have traditionally relied on to rank student applicants.
Some of last year’s big changes — including the decision to bar high schools from giving a leg up to students who live in their district — will stay in place this year.
Last year’s shift to prohibit middle schools from using grades and test scores as part of admissions will also remain in effect.
That change, which scrapped “academic screens” at nearly 200 middle schools, boosted the number of low-income students accepted at the city’s most selective schools last year, according to the Education Department.
“This administration has brought real and lasting equitable change to the admissions process that has dismantled historic barriers and opened up opportunity for more students than ever before,” said city Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter.
High schools are still allowed to consider students’ grades from the first several months of this school year for admissions purposes, but not their marks from last school year, when many students were remote and schools adopted a different grading system.
High schools that consider students’ grades for admissions will also be required to examine at least one other item, such as a writing sample, officials said.
No schools will be allowed to consider students’ scores on state exams as part of admissions. State tests were offered last year, but were optional for city students, and only about 20% of eligible third-to-eighthgraders participated.
The biggest reversal from last year’s pandemic admissions upheaval is the decision to allow high schools to prioritize students who live in their immediate vicinity or borough.
Roughly 235 city high schools use a borough or geographic zone preference as part of determining admissions for a portion of their seats, though only one high school uses such a preference for all its seats.
Last year, city officials announced that they would phase out all geographic preferences as part of a plan to make the system more fair, with former Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza arguing “these screens have kept too many students out of the high school of their choice.”
But education officials decided to keep the borough and zone preferences following pushback from parents and elected officials.
A separate change from last year that prohibits schools from giving admissions priority to students who live in their district — a policy that was particularly widespread among the coveted high schools in Manhattan’s District 2 — still stands, officials said.
In another change, individual high schools will no longer be responsible for reviewing their own applications. Instead, a team in the Education Department’s central office will review all high school applications using one rubric — a system education officials said will lead to a more “consistent scoring process.”
Several arts-focused middle schools that were barred from holding auditions last year will be allowed to resume tryouts.
Middle school applications will open the week of Jan. 10 and will be due the week of Feb. 28 with decisions expected in early May. High school applications will open the week of Jan. 24 and will be due the week of Feb. 28, with decisions expected in late May.