Deciding what is the capacity of a popular high school is tricky in a city that uses school choice. Here's an article from the NY Times about Francis Lewis high school in Queens, in NYC. It is way over 'capacity' because it is popular: At School in Queens, Success Draws Crowd.
(To put it another way, capacity is flexible, and so are students; some eat lunch at 9am, since the lunchroom has to be scheduled all day...)
Following the publication of the story, the Times published some letters to the editor from proud former teachers and students at Francis Lewis (including one from a famous economist).
Doesn't the match system specify the size of the school? By using the match, rather than having to worry about "yield", they should be able pretty much to specify their class size ahead of time, shouldn't they? Also, I had the impression from reading about the match that all schools were open to any student.
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