Admissions changes at some selective NYC schools boost number of Black, Latino students

Michael Elsen-Rooney, New York Daily News
·2 min read

A pandemic easing of admissions requirements at selective New York City public high schools upped the number of Black and Latino students, new city Education Department data shows.

Under the new rules instituted this year, students with grades anywhere between 85 and 100 were considered equal for admissions purposes at many selective high schools — a change DOE officials argued offered a wider swath of high-achieving students access to some of the city’s most popular high schools and leveled the playing for students whose grades were affected by COVID-19 disruptions.

Critics have attacked the policy change as diluting meritocracy in high school admissions and punishing the very highest-performing students.

At Millennium Brooklyn High School, 43% of admission offers this year went to Black and Latino students, up from 20% last year, according to the DOE. At selective Townsend Harris High School in Queens, the share of offers to Black and Latino teens rose from 16% last year to 23% this year. The Education Department didn’t share demographics for students admitted to all of the city’s 160 selective high schools.

Overall, 75% of eighth-graders who applied to city public schools got an offer at one of their top three choices, up slightly from 73% last year.

Admissions rules did not change for the city’s eight specialized academic high schools, including Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Technical High Schools, which still admit students solely based on their results on a single standardized test.

Similar to previous years, a small share of spots went to Black and Latino students this year, despite efforts to expand access to test preparation and offer the exam at every middle school. Nine % of seats at specialized schools went to Black and Latino kids this year, according to the DOE data, even though they make up 66% of all city students.

Education Department officials have pledged to keep tinkering with high school admissions rules to make the complex process easier for families to navigate.