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More eighth-graders applied to New York City’s highest-performing high schools this year, forcing the city to deny more students their top choices than in the past.

Data released on high school admissions by the Department of Education today shows that while fewer eighth-graders applied for seats in public high schools — down from 80,412 last year to 78,747 this year — the process has become more competitive. Fewer students were matched to one of their top five choices and more of them weren’t matched to any schools at all.

City officials’ explanation for this shift is that more eighth graders’ top choices were concentrated in the same set of schools. With so many students vying for the same schools — many of them among the city’s top-performing — fewer students got what they wanted.

This year, 83 percent of students landed one of their top five high school choices, down from 86 percent last year. The number of unmatched students — eighth-graders who weren’t paired with a high school and who will have to reapply to schools with open seats — swelled from 6,694 last year to 8,239 this year.

DOE officials attributed the sudden popularity of some schools to the city’s decision to include schools’ graduation rates in the high school directory. Schools with graduation rates above 90 percent saw a 30 percent rise in applications, while schools whose graduation rates are below 50 percent received 34 percent fewer applications. (more…)

In a year when legal wrangling complicated the high school admissions process, the city managed to place more than half of eighth-graders in their first-choice school, city officials said today.

Still, more than 6,500 eighth-graders didn’t get into any high school at all, according to the Department of Education’s annual press release touting admissions results. The city released the results today, nearly a month later than usual and more than two weeks after the department mailed out admissions decisions that had been delayed by a lawsuit over school closures.

The 80,412 students who submitted high school applications included 8,382 students who applied to one of the 14 high schools the city tried to close this year. Originally, the department planned to assign those students to another high school listed on their application. But after the city lost a lawsuit stopping the school closures, the department generated new matches for the students, giving 1,397 of them a choice between attending a school the city has deemed failing and another school the student ranked lower. (The other 7,000 students ranked the schools slated for closure so low on their applications that they were placed elsewhere.) Students have until the end of next week to choose, according to a letter sent to principals last week by Leonard Trerotola, the department’s high school enrollment director.

An additional 174 students who were matched with schools originally slated to close will be able to submit an application in the supplementary round, typically reserved for students who were not accepted to any school. (more…)