How do Cutoff Scores Work?

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    • #13510 Reply
      JZ
      Guest

      Hi, all. Curious about how to read the cutoff scores. My son is 30 points above the cutoff score for Lane in Tier 2, yet he did not get an offer. He is slightly (0.2 pts) above the average score for the tier, yet no offer? Am I misunderstanding how this works? That seems like he should have gotten an offer.

    • #13515 Reply
      lg
      Guest

      The same thing happened to us at a different school. Have the tiers changed for this year and not been published?

    • #13522 Reply
      JZ
      Guest

      In my case, moving from Tier 2 to Tier 3 would certainly explain it. My son would drop out of eligibility, but I am quite sure I was Tier 2 going into the process.

      I did find an article about tiers being messed up during the 2019 selective enrollment process for about 1000 students.

      https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-public-schools-enrollment-wrong-tiers-20191213-pvdefcn46jh5rjbxyxyzbf7u4q-story.html

      Is there a way to confirm the current Tiers used?

      • #13531 Reply
        cps_life
        Participant

        I suggest you contact CPS as soon as possible on Monday. Maybe that is why they release the results 5PM at Friday so that they don’t have to take calls from anxious parents.

        In the past, CPS is pretty good at admitting students who were not admitted due to its mistake. In the meantime, you can double check the tier of your residence.

        https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoollocator/index.html?overlay=tier

        • #13538 Reply
          JZ
          Guest

          Thanks for the advice. We still come up as Tier 2. I’ll give them a call on Monday.

          • #13539 Reply
            lg
            Guest

            I’ll do the same, please update here.

    • #13559 Reply
      8th grader
      Guest

      Also regarding cutoff scores, I saw someone receive a 688 and got into Jones SE. I thought the lowest possible cutoff score for Jones was 809?

      • #13582 Reply
        another parent
        Guest

        It’s possible that they got into one of Jones pre-engineering/pre-law tracks, that score would qualify them.

        https://drive.google.com/file/d/13MxvMaXOr3PB_GBoi7jnm55Sas112cSD/view

        • #13583 Reply
          8th grader
          Guest

          The CTE scoring rubric goes up to 600. They got into Jones Selective Enrollment, not CTE.

      • #13636 Reply
        Justamom
        Guest

        Maybe that student has an IEP. Jones, along with the other SE schools, has to admit a certain percentage of diverse learners.

    • #13591 Reply
      JZ
      Guest

      So I was able to get through this morning after a long wait on hold. A very nice woman took my information and said that my son’s case would be investigated. Because it is the first business day since the offers were released, she couldn’t give me an estimate on response time, as the volume of investigations isn’t yet known. She did mention that she earlier spoke to another parent with the same issue of a potentially wrong tier being applied.

      So now I wait and see what comes down. While the phone wait time was long (not surprising at all), I found the woman I spoke with to be concerned and engaged.

      • #13592 Reply
        lg
        Guest

        Thank you for the update! I have yet to speak to anyone but will update here if I get further information. Good luck to you!

    • #13597 Reply
      LLC5
      Guest

      We were assigned a different Tier than what is shown in the School Locator as well, making the difference of my son getting in to his top choice school. I spoke with someone this morning as well and they said they would open an investigation and get back to me.

    • #13598 Reply
      CPSMom2
      Guest

      How do you know what Tier you are assigned to? Does it show with the results? Thanks!

    • #13599 Reply
      lg
      Guest

      I spoke with someone who looked in 2 databases – one that had us listed as Tier 4, which was the data used for the decision,  and the other (School Locator) which had us listed as Tier 3. I was told they would investigate and get back to me.

    • #13618 Reply
      lg
      Guest

      Does anyone have an update? I am being told that they are still investigating, but that school locator should be the source of truth for Tier data.

    • #13629 Reply
      JZ
      Guest

      A little after 2pm today, I received an email from the CPS informing me of an update to my round 1 high school offer. I logged into the portal and found that the offer I was expecting, given my son’s scores and our tier, are now in line. He got the offer we were hoping for.

      There is no explanation as to what happened, but they did “apologize for the delay of this offer and regret any confusion this may have caused.”

      I hope any of you who are dealing with this same issue got the same email and result you were hoping for. Best wishes.

      • #13630 Reply
        lg
        Guest

        I received the same email. Congratulations to you and your son and thank you for starting this thread. It was very helpful.

    • #13631 Reply
      LLC5
      Guest

      Same here. I was told there was one small area that was not tiered correctly in their database. The School Locator is correct so they were adjusting.

    • #13632 Reply
      JZ
      Guest

      Triple high fives for all! Hope your kids have a great HS experience.

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