Tribune: 'A really brutal admissions year' 'A really brutal admissions year'

You may be asking, is this about college?

Getting accepted to one of Chicago's elite public high schools — a process often likened to landing a spot at an Ivy League college — became even more cutthroat this year as nearly perfect application scores were not good enough for more students than ever before.

"It's been a really brutal admissions year," said Jonina Lerner, a partner at SelectivePrep, the largest test preparation class for the city's selective-enrollment high schools. "Not only did some students not get their first or second choice, but some students who scored in the top 1 percent of the city got their third choice, and some kids who are really good didn't get in anywhere."

Chicago developed its roster of elite selective-enrollment high schools in part to keep middle-class parents from fleeing to the suburbs. Now those city children go through a grueling application process in hopes of landing seats at the schools, which are among the state's best.

Admissions scores are calculated on a 900-point scale based on a student's seventh-grade academic scores, seventh-grade standardized tests and an entrance exam.

Of the 200 students admitted to Walter Payton College Prep, 95 scored 896 or above. At Northside College Prep, more than half scored 895 or higher. That means the difference between being accepted or not came down to missing a few questions on the entrance exam and landing a couple of percentiles below the top on standardized tests.

I look forward to the day all of our public schools are this attractive to our best and brightest students. We're just not there yet!

Read the whole thing!

A quirk in CPS' new enrollment system

Sun-Times:

A quirk in the Chicago Public Schools' new enrollment system puts children from parts of some economically better-off neighborhoods such as the Near North Side, Albany Park, Rogers Park and Uptown in the same category as children from the city's poorest areas, such as Englewood and Lawndale.

That's because the new system is designed to emphasize economic -- rather than racial -- diversity, and it assumes that where you live determines how well-off you are.

Some, however, fear that wealthier families living in census tracts classified in the system as being "poorer" will now be able to "game the system" for admission to elite schools. Studies have shown that test scores closely track with income, and students from wealthier families will likely have an edge if they test against poorer students.

Likewise, poor students who are members of some of the last remaining low-income families in recently gentrified neighborhoods now classified by CPS as "richer" could be at a disadvantage because they would be testing against students from wealthier families.

Read the whole thing!

Investigation of CPS admissions requested

Investigation of CPS admissions requested :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Education

This story broke yesterday and was the subject of a 6th Ward blog post. Today's story takes aim at the aspect of selective enrollment known as "principal's pick". Is this issue a concern for anyone?

Shared via AddThis

Feds probe Blagojevich contacts with colleges

Tribune:

The U.S. attorney's office wants to know if former Gov. Rod Blagojevich or his power brokers sought a leg-up for applicants to the University of Illinois and at least two other state universities.

Campus spokespeople confirmed today that the University of Illinois, Southern Illinois University and Northern Illinois University have received subpoenas.

NIU's subpoena seeks records of communications between campus officials and Blagojevich, William Cellini, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, Chris Kelly and Alonzo "Lon" Monk between 2002 and 2008.

Another wrinkle in the case against our former governor.