2021 middle school admissions: lessons learned from District 15

By Joyce Szuflita
Hi everyone else in the City!
Now that the City is taking on a version of the admissions plan that was adopted by District 15 a few years ago, I thought you could befit from some good old Brownstone Brooklyn insight. Most of this advice is not new or unique, but it is worth understanding through the new lottery lens.

First off, for us, switching from a system with a number of screened programs to all lottery programs, wasn’t that big a deal. The 11 middle schools in the district, while quite different in popularity, demographics, sometimes philosophy, were all filled with educators of integrity and talent. It wasn’t hard for families with a little gentle prodding to expand their thinking and embrace a much wider range of schools than they traditionally would have. When you don’t have the illusion of leverage that a screened program brings, and you are just lucky or not, you have to really consider all options. I am proud to say that Brooklyn families in these neighborhoods generally want to do the right thing, are happy to link arms in support of each other and they kind of dig a bit of start up energy. I am not their representative, but I am proud to be their neighbor.

Here is what you need to know:
You can rank up to 12 choices. In many districts you may have more or less than 12 district schools. You don’t have to fill in all 12 spots but now that you don’t have the illusion of academic “leverage” at some programs, you better enlarge your list. Word to the wise. My recommendation is that you look far past the most popular programs. There will be unseen gems out there. You also need to consider the number of seats available. Applying to larger schools as well as small ones is necessary when a lottery is in play.

The conspiracy theories are idiotic. Putting a less than popular school on your list doesn’t prompt the City’s computer to automatically place you there. I have a decade of experience that tells me that thinking is moronic, and I am not going to entertain any stories about somebodies’ cousin who had that happen. There are always some random exceptions but I know thousands of kids who have placed less popular programs on their lists and have gotten their favorites. You are being placed in schools based on a Nobel Prize winning algorithm. Gather a wide and deep list of worthy schools and rank them in true preference order. The schools will have NO SAY in placement. Leave them alone.

You are not guaranteed a school from your list. This has been a misunderstanding among many families in previous years. “I filled in all 12 spots! Why did I get placed at a school that wasn’t on my list?!!” The reason is because the list is your only opportunity to express your preferences to the DOE, but you can’t “force” them to place you somewhere by making a list that is too short, or unrealistic. Filling your list with wildly popular schools may be your preference, but not including some under the radar or larger programs is foolish. You are playing a dangerous game only listing “Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford…”

If they can’t place you at a school from your list, they will place you in a school in your district that has room. I only know districts in northwest Brooklyn, but they all have enough seats for everyone that wants to attend middle school. It was a totally silly fear that people would be placed outside their districts of residence. You can certainly add Borough-wide and City-wide schools to your list, but if you don’t have a robust list of district programs as well - you will be placed in their choice, not yours. Don’t abdicate your only power.

There are no “feeder” middle schools. Aside from 6-12th grade programs that give priority to currently attending 8th graders, no high school cares where you go to middle school. You have the same potential options whether you go to a coveted middle school or not. Placement will depend on your child’s hard work and/or talent and increasingly - good luck.

Back in the day (three years ago) about 75% of kids in D15 got one of their top 3 choices (anecdotal information gathered by me from Parent Coordinators). Now under the diversity admissions, about 75% of kids get one of their top three choices (anecdotal information gathered by me from Parent Coordinators). It is just different kids and a larger (different) range of schools. It has been a boon to families AND to the schools. The schools people are currently choosing from is a wider list and they are more racially and socio-economically diverse. The majority of families are quite happy. It took the pressure off the kids. No going to school sick to improve your attendance numbers and no crying on test days. The beauty contest aspect of ranking middle school students is gone. And we didn’t see a large group of affluent families fleeing to the suburbs. A few vocal people left, a couple of charter schools got a little more popular. The numbers of kids applying from elementary school remained largely the same.

Will this work in every district? No. We were the perfect place for this plan.
The schools, even though they were not all equal in popularity, are all quality programs. The district is very diverse; socio-economically and racially. We were mostly into it and it was our choice.

What you need for your child at middle school is for them to be safe, surrounded by educators of integrity and to come out of school with their self esteem intact. If those things are in place, everything else will be in place.