High School Admissions Hysteria -- Does Chicago Have It Too? (Lincoln: home, neighborhood)

[citylove101]

In both Chitown and NYC recently, offers to the most selective high schools have been made to eigth grade students. Here in NYC this is a really big day for these kids and their parents, with much jubilation or crying, depending on the results. It also renews the annual controversy about how offers are made and why so few black and Hispanic kids make it into these schools.

So what's the vibe in Chicago like around these schools and getting into them? And is it as racially a charged subject as it is here?

[NealIRC]

Wow this is a good discussion...


Problem is more of the people in the forum don't send their kids to the public schools.

[chet everett]

My sense, still having friends that are CPS teachers, is that kids aiming for the most highly desired CPS magnet high schools, namely Northside and Payton, do celebrate a bit. They really do get an "elite" school experience for essentially no cost. It is still very much a four year pressure cooker for them to maintain top tier grades, especially in the demanding AP classes that are a big part of getting into the kind of colleges that will offer both a path to solid academic success and the kinds of financial aid that are increasingly important to even families with pretty solid incomes.

For kids that are bright / hardworking and willing to put up with some of the negatives of other CPS selective admissions programs (the weird mix of kids at Lincoln Park or Jones, the funkiness of Young location / commute, the enormous size of Lane) they are kind of grateful that they got into a selective program, but if their family can afford a private school they will think long and hard about the odds of success in either setting.

If families have no ability to pay for private school but they have equity in their home then the value of a town with good public high schools and reasonable commute for mom & dad often does trigger a move. Especially for folks that might live in parts of the city that really are not all that conducive to "family friendly lifestyle" the move is generally a back-up plan that the family has been thinking about since long before the CPS notices get sent.

Of course there are some folks stuck in bad situations -- city workers in lower paid positions, those with no equity for a move to the nicer suburbs -- apparently there are not enough such folks to really pressure the city to lift the residency requirement nor improve the neighborhood schools...

[1776G]

I literally just made an account to brag about the diversity in the selective enrollment schools- we have the most diverse test-in schools in the country. It's awesome. One of the most elite schools, Whitney Young, is the second most diverse high school in the country. It's a crazy time right now, but things are getting better in the neighborhood and magnet schools. It used to be that if you didn't test in, you ponied up for catholic or moved to the suburbs. Now, a lot of families are making things work. It's less dramatic than it was in the past. Everyone on this forum is pretty uppity about schools though, haha. The neighborhood schools like Lake View, Senn, and Amundsen are all much, much, better than they were in the past. If you have the time, check out the cps obsessed forum- High School Letters 2016 | CPS Obsessed. It's really interesting to see the perspectives of the parents of these kids

[Thepreacherswife]

It is high stress and high stakes, and definitely has racial undertones, as 70% of the slots are divvied up by census "tiers" (mainly based on income) since CPS can't overtly set aside slots based on race. 30% of the slots are based on overall score. Plus there are a limited number of slots that can be awarded at the discretion of the principal.

You can see from the 2016-2017 score cutoff that the most competitive schools (Jones, Young, Northside) have very narrow acceptance ranges at the high end of the census tiers - tier 4. The score is based on three things: 7th grade standardized testing, 7th grade final grades, and the selective enrollment exam. 900 points is the max score.

[Ace Rothstein]

I would think the parents do more celebrating than the kids as they won't have to drop $15-30k per year on high school tuition if their kid gets into one of the desirable high schools.

Aren't there something like 1500 spots available each year at Payton, Jones, Young and Northside? The odds of getting in aren't good.

[Gaul Figalle]

Is it a pressure cooker system like NYC where kids have to prep from birth to get into the best schools?

I.e. is getting into Payton a similar educational trajectory as getting into Stuy?

Or is it more of a lottery system, like in San Francisco?

[jonnynonos]

Originally Posted by 1776G

I literally just made an account to brag about the diversity in the selective enrollment schools- we have the most diverse test-in schools in the country. It's awesome. One of the most elite schools, Whitney Young, is the second most diverse high school in the country. It's a crazy time right now, but things are getting better in the neighborhood and magnet schools. It used to be that if you didn't test in, you ponied up for catholic or moved to the suburbs. Now, a lot of families are making things work. It's less dramatic than it was in the past. Everyone on this forum is pretty uppity about schools though, haha. The neighborhood schools like Lake View, Senn, and Amundsen are all much, much, better than they were in the past. If you have the time, check out the cps obsessed forum- High School Letters 2016 | CPS Obsessed. It's really interesting to see the perspectives of the parents of these kids

Please show me data that Amundsen and Senn are "much, much better" than they were in the past and please clarify what you mean by "past."

Amundsen for example seems to have worse aggregate scores than the district -- which is saying something.

Further, I find your charectarization patently false. Transients are not staying put and sending their kids to Chicago public high schools save for the magnet schools and the odd family who might send their kid to Lake View or Taft.

The demographic changes over the last 10 years actually paint the complete opposite picture of your post, which to me suggests you are either grossly misinformed or engaging in some truly brazen data mining.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Gaul Figalle

Is it a pressure cooker system like NYC where kids have to prep from birth to get into the best schools?

I.e. is getting into Payton a similar educational trajectory as getting into Stuy?

Or is it more of a lottery system, like in San Francisco?

The selective admissions schools admit students based largely on academic performance. It probably is not fair to call the system a "pressure cooker" as kids that are admitted to higher performing selective admissions elementary schools have already been "sieved out" from the mass of underperforming CPS schools. Though there is an effort to give preference to students from disadvantaged areas (as the system was concocted back in the era of busing and other desegregation efforts...) the paltry ranks of high performing minority students mean there have been shifts away from "balanced enrollment" -- Whites getting more spots at top Chicago public high schools | Education News

[citylove101]

Yep, I guess the same issues are at play -- race, class, access, -- in Chicago as in New York. Somebody sent me these two articles today. I don't know how representative they are of the way most Chicagoans feel (and especially the black ones) but unfortunately, it feels depressingly familiar. (My Chicago family members went private /Catholic for high school and so avoided this. It's why I started this thread .)

Yes, No, Maybe So: The Perils of High School Placement in Chicago - Education Post

And You Thought Getting Into the Ivies Was Hard