Everyone. Calm down about your middle school random numbers.
/
By Joyce Szuflita
I know you are freaking out. People who panic drown. Stop it. It is not as bad as you think.
First, the random numbers have always been with us. In other years you just wouldn’t have known what your number was. Last year’s reveal of the numbers was a mistake. This year the DoE is doing it on purpose with enough time for you to consider your number along with your list. To find your number go to your MYSCHOOLS account, click “edit profile” and it should be listed there. My advice in making your application list, now and forever - make a solid, complete list of schools (reaches and safeties) and RANK IN TRUE PREFERENCE ORDER. This advice never changes, even when you know you have a “bad or good” number. Don’t self select out of the couple of schools that may be “Hail Mary passes” on your list, just because you think that they are long shots, BUT DON’T LOAD YOUR LIST WITH THEM. If you self select out, then you will never get that school and while you some little insight on your chances, you just don’t know. If you have a “good number” it would be foolish to make a minimal list or rank all crazy popular schools, because there are so many factors in play. To decipher your number look at the chart in this article.
Let’s look at the stats from last year.
District 15 students (where you have 12 choices plus borowide and citywide options): 84% of students got one of their top 3 choices, 91% got one of their top 5 and 97% got one of their top 10. Why? because there are so many good choices. Families all love different schools, and this algorithm actually works very well. That is why it won the Nobel Prize. What about that last 3%? We can’t tell for certain, but they likely didn’t make a full list or a well balanced one. I think it is very likely that their lottery numbers were all over the place and not just numbers at the bottom.
District 13 students (where you have 9 choices plus borowide and citywide options): 92% got one of their top 3 choices. 96% got one of their top 5. 98% got a placement from their top 10.
District 14 students (where you have 10 choices plus borowide and citywide options): 96% got one of their top 3 choice, 98% got one of their top 5, and 99% got one from their top 10.
If you want to see a list of the schools in your district, go here.
If you want to see the list of borowide and citywide schools, go here.
