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I’m confused about how the AC applications work and if I should join. Any advice?
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Hi,
I have twins who will apply for academic centers next year. The CPS guidance is that school selection does not affect one’s chances of getting in. I wonder if that’s true, and I want to maximize the very small chance that my kids will get spots in the same school.
Does anyone have a nuanced understanding of how it works? Here’s my hypothetical. Let’s say a kid gets a 570, and the cutoffs for WY and Lane are 572 and 570, respectively. That would mean that the kid does not get an offer from WY. Will the kid get an offer at Lane BEFORE a kid who got a 575 but listed Lane first instead of WY? What about another kid who got a 570 but listed Lane first instead of second?
Thank you!
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Assuming tier is the same, the 575 kid will always get an offer over the 570 kid. If there are 2 kids with 570 and one seat left, they use their tiebreaker process.
This is the tiebreaker process: (1) If one student has a higher overall test score (158 with 3 As and a B vs. 148 with straight As, say), then the kid with the higher test score gets the seat. (2) If the composite exam score is the same, whoever has the higher nonverbal subscore gets the seat. (3) If it’s the nonverbal score is the same for both, then they look at the verbal subscore. (4) If that’s the same too, then it’s a random lottery.
How you ranked a school is not part of the tiebreaker.
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My child has their heart set on one AC that is further away from our home. We ranked another AC that is closer to our home second.
I’m wondering if that ranking may impact my child’s first and best offer. Would listing only one AC be best?
I understand my child may not be offered anything at all with only one school ranked.
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No impact, just rank in order of your actual preference any school that you’d consider taking an offer for.
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I see lots of correct answers to your question – your ranking of schools has no impact on the process.
You were looking for an explanation of the process. Here is a simplified explanation of the process for both academic center and selective enrollment schools, ignoring principal discretion and other special cases.
Each school has essentially 5 buckets for students: Rank, Tier 4, Tier 3, Tier 2, and Tier 1. Every student has an opportunity to fall within 2 of the buckets: the rank bucket, and then the bucket of whatever tier they are in. Once a bucket is filled, no more students can get into the school through that bucket
Assuming there were 1,000 total students who went through the academic center application process, they are ranked from 1 to 1,000 based upon their test results, etc. There is a complicated set of “tie-breakers” for students who get the same score which will determine there place on this ranked list, but there will eventually be a list of 1 through 1,000.
Once the list of students is created, the students are placed in the available school buckets based upon the order of that they are ranked. This means, for the student ranked #1, they will fall into the “ranked” bucket for the first school of their choice. Once the “ranked” bucket for a school is filled, then the tier buckets are available. This process continues for every student on the list – CPS looks to see if there is bucket available for the student based upon the schools that they listed and ranked.
So, for example, if your child is tier 3 and lists Whitney Young as their first choice and Taft as their second choice, then when their place on the ranked list is called, CPS will look to see if there is any space available in the Whitney Young ranked bucket. If that bucket is full, CPS will look to see if there is a space available in the Whitney Young tier 3 bucket. If that bucket is also full, CPS will look to see if there is a space available in the Taft ranked bucket and, if that bucket is also filled, if there is a space available in the Taft tier 3 bucket. If a space is available in any of the schools that you ranked, your student will get in. CPS will then repeat the process for the next student on the list.
Under this process, you want to rank the schools in the order of interest in attending. Using the example I gave above, if the student listed Taft as their first choice and Whitney Young as their second choice, they would get into Taft if a spot was available in a bucket, even though Whitney Young also had space available for the student.
Putting Whitney Young above Lane Tech does not affect your student’s chance to get into either school vis a vis other students – school ranking only affects the order that CPS will look at when seeing if there is space available for the student in the various buckets. There is no advantage of only listing one school (unless you are not interested in attending any other school).
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I have a question about test scores. How many questions do you have to answer correctly to get a score of say 570? How many questions are there in the Academic Center exam?
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I am going to take the academic center test in 2 weeks. Should I be worried because I was told that if you are in tier 4 it will be harder to get in. I want to go to lane. How many questions can I get wrong out of 215. I am very nervous so if anyone has any tips please let me know. 😉
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Hey test taker. You are correct in that the scores are higher for tier 4. This past year the score for lane tier 4 was 560. So assuming 300 points for straight As on your 7th grade grades, that equates to 260 points from the exam, which is 144 out of 160. I do not know how many questions are on the test – maybe someone else does but that should give you an idea.
The test format covers thinking, reasoning, problem solving type of questions. It never hurts to brush up on general test taking tips to help you find some strategies for handling questions. If you have a counselor at school they may be able to give you some resources. You’ve got this!
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Ok thanks so much for the tips. I had all A’s in 5th grade and I have been studying for awhile now so now I should just hope for the best
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Ok thanks so much for the tips. I had all A’s in 5th grade and I have been studying for awhile now so now I should just hope for the best
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