The high school choice process in New York City uses an algorithm that makes it safe for families to list high schools in their order of preference over them. But forming well-informed preferences is no easy task.
The NY Times has a story about long lines forming for tours of a desirable public high school:
Why White Parents Were at the Front of the Line for the School Tour
The high stakes of high school admissions in New York — and the lengths some go to get any small advantage. By Eliza Shapiro
"Parents who pay $200 for a newsletter compiled by a local admissions consultant know that they should arrive hours ahead of the scheduled start time for school tours.
"On a recent Tuesday, there were about a hundred mostly white parents queued up at 2:30 p.m. in the spitting rain outside of Beacon High School, some toting snacks and even a few folding chairs for the long wait. The doors of the highly selective, extremely popular school would not open for another two hours for the tour.
"Parents and students who arrived at the actual start time were in for a surprise. The line of several thousand people had wrapped around itself, stretching for three midtown Manhattan blocks.
...
"Many New Yorkers cannot leave work in the middle of the afternoon, and some students surely did not know that the open house — or even the school — existed in the first place."
**********
The story goes on to talk about the matching system for high schools, which uses a deferred acceptance algorithm. Parag Pathak points out to me that one paragraph contains a sentence that is easy to interpret incorrectly:
"Beacon, unlike Stuyvesant, does not have an admissions test. But to win a spot, students must have high standardized test scores and grades, along with a strong portfolio of middle school work and admissions essays. Students are much less likely to be accepted if they do not list Beacon as their top choice." (emphasis added)
Parag writes about this line: "while factually correct, the statement creates a misleading impression: a student is only less likely to get Beacon if they didn't list it as their top choice in the case that they were assigned their first choice school instead. And most people who apply to Beacon list it first because it's their top choice. "
The manner in which the deferred acceptance algorithm (with students proposing) makes it safe for families to state their true preferences can be summarized this way: If you list Beacon as your second choice, and don't get your first choice, then your chance of admission to Beacon is the same as if you had listed it as your first choice.
Of course, even with that guarantee, a family's choice may not be simple if they would have liked to rank order 15 schools, and are only allowed to list 12. Then they have to consider whether, if they are rejected by their first choice, they are likely to be accepted by Beacon, or whether rejection from their first choice is a signal that they might not be competitive at Beacon either. (In which case, listing Beacon as first choice wouldn't have helped...)
See my recent post:
The NY Times has a story about long lines forming for tours of a desirable public high school:
Why White Parents Were at the Front of the Line for the School Tour
The high stakes of high school admissions in New York — and the lengths some go to get any small advantage. By Eliza Shapiro
"Parents who pay $200 for a newsletter compiled by a local admissions consultant know that they should arrive hours ahead of the scheduled start time for school tours.
"On a recent Tuesday, there were about a hundred mostly white parents queued up at 2:30 p.m. in the spitting rain outside of Beacon High School, some toting snacks and even a few folding chairs for the long wait. The doors of the highly selective, extremely popular school would not open for another two hours for the tour.
"Parents and students who arrived at the actual start time were in for a surprise. The line of several thousand people had wrapped around itself, stretching for three midtown Manhattan blocks.
...
"Many New Yorkers cannot leave work in the middle of the afternoon, and some students surely did not know that the open house — or even the school — existed in the first place."
**********
The story goes on to talk about the matching system for high schools, which uses a deferred acceptance algorithm. Parag Pathak points out to me that one paragraph contains a sentence that is easy to interpret incorrectly:
"Beacon, unlike Stuyvesant, does not have an admissions test. But to win a spot, students must have high standardized test scores and grades, along with a strong portfolio of middle school work and admissions essays. Students are much less likely to be accepted if they do not list Beacon as their top choice." (emphasis added)
Parag writes about this line: "while factually correct, the statement creates a misleading impression: a student is only less likely to get Beacon if they didn't list it as their top choice in the case that they were assigned their first choice school instead. And most people who apply to Beacon list it first because it's their top choice. "
The manner in which the deferred acceptance algorithm (with students proposing) makes it safe for families to state their true preferences can be summarized this way: If you list Beacon as your second choice, and don't get your first choice, then your chance of admission to Beacon is the same as if you had listed it as your first choice.
Of course, even with that guarantee, a family's choice may not be simple if they would have liked to rank order 15 schools, and are only allowed to list 12. Then they have to consider whether, if they are rejected by their first choice, they are likely to be accepted by Beacon, or whether rejection from their first choice is a signal that they might not be competitive at Beacon either. (In which case, listing Beacon as first choice wouldn't have helped...)
See my recent post:
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