MySchools enrollment system uses a lottery system where they assign a student a random number and use that to assign a highschool for students regardless of academic scores or achievements. Which means a student who is failing or has low grades has the same chances to get into a top school as a student who has put in the effort in outstanding grades. 

It should be based on academic scores, grades and achievements. It’s unfair for students who have put in the effort and hard work. Students who have outstanding grades and have studies for over years ended up in their zoned or a school that is below their academic worth which really made them depressive when they found out their Highschool results. Those students have also made suicidal remarks and many negative comments.

According to the New York Times, “Under the formula, a student with grades as low as 65 to 75 in some classes can land in the highest lottery group with kids who earned 90s across the board.” This means that students who have worked so hard for the past 2 1/2 years to maintain there grades and attendance have gotten into mostly zoned-schools. Additionally most of the students who got into their zone schools have also gotten into the “Zoned” program, even though the students have applied for different programs such as the Honors program. 

Specifically in our school, students who have gotten failing grades such as 50’s and mid 60’s have gotten into top tier schools such as Leon M. Goldstein High School For The Sciences and Honors Programs at schools like Midwood High School and Murrow High School, whereas students with averages in the high 90’s and even 100’s have gotten into there zoned schools AND zoned programs without any other offers or consideration from other schools and/or programs. 

The high school system uses this point system where the highest amount of points possible is 400. Students are separated in 4 groups: students with grades of 90 - 100 have 300 - 400 points these students are in group 1, students with grades 80 - 90 have 200 - 300 points these students are in group 2, students with grades 70 - 80 have 100 - 200 points these students are in group 3, finally students with failing grades of 69 and lower have less than 100 points are in group 4. High schools admit that students in group 1 are prioritized in enrollment and will automatically gain a seat if available. If schools are able to hold all group 1 students and still have remaining seats, they would go to group 2 students. If there aren’t enough seats for all group 1 students then throughout the group 1, students are randomly selected. This is very reasonable however as stated above there are students from different groups such as group 3 and 4 that have gotten into screened schools. This does not make sense as that there are students in group 1 that got rejected in all programs/schools they have chosen resulting in them going to their zoned school. If other students from other groups are allowed in screened schools this means that all students in group 1 have gotten at least one offer from a screened school/program but as shown this is not the case.

On top of that, majority, if not 95% of students have gotten into Zoned schools. This is also a problem because Highschool results came out extremely late compared to previous years, we understand that due to the current Covid - 19 Situation, everything has been delayed however if most students got into their zoned schools AND zoned programs, why did the whole process which involved so much stress and anxiety take so long. 

Overall, the students of NYC who are going to be freshmen next year are severely upset about this and hope to see change about this whole situation and a re-evaluation of these results. 

Thank You.