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?!