high school admissions in fall of 2020

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By Joyce Szuflita
WARNING: EVERYTHING THAT YOU READ HERE IS CONJECTURE. I AM TOTALLY GUESSING.

So everyone has been asking me what is going to happen in the fall. Ummmm, I know that I am very confident in my pronouncements, but the thought that I would know what the virus, Governor, Mayor and Chancellor will do in Sept is a wonderful vote of confidence. I appreciate it.

The City is starting to address concerns and the Chancellor has scheduled Admission Engagement Sessions by borough to allow you to weigh in on the process.

I missed this in the hubbub of prek admissions but Chalkbeat is on this topic too!

Here is what we don’t know:

  1. Almost everything.

  2. Whether we will be social distancing in the fall like we are now.

Here is what we know:

  1. Some things (most things) will be different in the fall.

  2. The Specialized HS will still require a test. (I don’t know this 100%, but for the sake of this blog, lets go with that.) The 3 of the 8 Specialized HS (Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech) would require a vote in the legislature to change the testing admissions requirements. Seems to me that they have other things on their mind right now. If social distancing is in place, there would have to be a contingency plan for testing. Last year the DoE enlarged the number of testing centers. It might be possible to spread the testing out to the extent that students are distancing. The other 5 schools (MSE, American Studies, Science at York, Brklyn Latin and S.I. Tech) don’t have the State mandated testing requirement, but the City has agreed that what is good for the big three is good for them all.

  3. Audition schools used auditions or art portfolios along with grades and/or test scores to rank students. Auditions usually took place in Nov. and Dec. Depending on distancing, I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t continue to do auditions and skip the grades and/or test scores.

  4. Screened schools in the past have used attendance, grades and test scores from 7th grade to rank the kids who applied to them. This year public school students don’t have 7th grade attendance, grades and test scores. Many people have asked me if the Chancellor will use 6th grade stats. I suppose he could, but what do we know about the Chancellor? He wants an even playing field and he wants to promote diversity. What have he and the Mayor done to promote that? Modified lotteries with consideration for economically disadvantaged students. I don’t see why he would want to deviate from that path. Some screened schools do require something else; a proprietary test, or more commonly a short essay or two. I don’t see why schools that are already doing that can’t continue. Aside from the fact that it requires a lot of manpower to read those essays (and that is enough reason not to do it), perhaps other schools might add it to their screening process. Let’s face it, the easiest “first cut” when you require an essay, would be the kids who don’t write it.

  5. Limited Unscreened programs used to exist. Limited Unscreened schools ranked kids by lottery, but students were preferenced in the lottery if they attended a tour or open house. It was supposed to show dedicated interest. Access to those events was unfair and would be hard with distancing anyway, but if the City moved to a more lottery based ranking, why couldn’t there be a preference if you were to jump through a small hoop, like a short answer essay.

  6. The algorithm isn’t going away. The City has used a matching algorithm called the “Medical School Match” for almost 2 decades. It allows parents to rank schools in true preference order without being disadvantaged. Even in places like the District 15 Middle School application, which famously moved to a lottery ranking with preferences for a certain percentage of economically disadvantaged students, the algorithm is still making the match.

  7. It is unlikely that we are going to have an idea of what many schools will be doing until way later in the summer.

So that is my guessing, based on what I have seen in the past. We will see what happens, when it happens.