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It seems that many, many tier 3 neighborhoods are now tier 4. Does anyone know if the tiers are distributed equally or are they getting around not removing rank and just packing tier 4? So frustrating for these students who have worked so hard.
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dad77 yes you are correct more tier 4 I was also tier 3 but they are building like crazy in bronzeville 750K for single family homes and they are getting those prices easy.
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Welcome the least privileged group. Oh well. Talking about being discriminated against when it comes to schools, this is nothing compared to college admission. I told my son long ago that he is in the most discriminated group when it comes to college admission. He has to be the very best and still has unparallel quality in a speciality field to go to top schools. But still undergraduate education is not that important. So, even the nearby state school is very good choice. The point is that the tier system is not that big a deal. If one can’t overcome this, it really hard to face reality later.
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Please stop saying tier 4 is the least privileged group. All tier 4 parents stop acting like you are not groveled. I understand the frustration, but, the fact you are on a forum about schools shows your privilege. Not everyone has the same access to these programs. @cps_life, to say you are the least privileged group is so ironic. The least privileged group lives in TIER 4. , highest income, highest home value. Please acknowledge your privilege, compared to students who have horrible neighborhood education.
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The forum is free. Anyone can create an account. How this makes anyone privileged is beyond me.
Tier system is utter stupidity. I have a few bucks more than you do doesn’t give my children any advantage. They still go to public schools eating free school lunches. I still drive an 18 year old car. I still live paycheck to paycheck. How does this make my children more privileged?
The point is that my rich neighbor doesn’t make me rich. If I were rich, I would have sent my children to private schools like my neighbors did instead of fighting over the precious few seats in public schools.
BTW, my rich neighbor can also afford to put their children in their 4th home in tier 3.
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Maybe school yourself on neighborhoods. I live in a Tier 4 and there is a sizable population of Polish immigrants that live in various apartments and cheaper houses. They are getting screwed. Don’t act like this system is anything remotely fair. Merit should be the only qualifier.
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But what is merit? Does someone who has the resources to do test prep, various enrichment classes, hire a private tutor to study for the test have more merit and is more qualified?
Tiers are an attempt at some equity, but it is still a flawed system. It would be more fair though if tiers were based on income, not just address.
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testprep is not cheap but not very expensive either. Most people afford the few hundred bucks. It cost less than an iPhone. I don’t own an expensive phone. I would rather spend it on testprep. It is all about priorities.
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You have to expose a child to enrichment opportunities throughout the entire life for test prep costing a few hundred bucks to be effective. Someone who did not know anything beyond school program will not benefit from a test prep, at least the benefit will be very marginal.
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I don’t agree with this. My children both attended a CPS neighborhood elementary school. We did not do any type of enrichment for them outside of school. We did sign them up for test prep in 8th grade. One is now at Walter Payton and we are fairly confident the other will be offered a seat at his first choice Whitney Young. While I don’t know for certain if the test prep helped, I will gladly pay the fee again for their results. We live in Tier 3.
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Does that mean tier 4 will be more competitive? Or will they increase the number of spots for tier 4 kids as there will be more kids in tier 4?
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There are not more kids in tier 4. What ES said is accurate. There is an equal number of school-aged kids in each of the four tiers.
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We all know this is how it’s supposed to work, an equal amount of school-aged kids in each tier, but my question is is this what’s actually happening? Has anyone heard of any address where the tier was lowered? I’ve only heard of full neighborhoods moved to tier 4.
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The Catholic grade school my three kids went to (last one is 8th grader there now) drew mostly from what was historically Tier 4, but there were several families from little pockets of various neighborhoods that were classified as Tier 3. And yes, we certainly knew of many “Tier 3” families that lived in million dollar homes.
It was quite frustrating to see those kids get into the SE high schools with lower scores year after year. To be clear, I was not frustrated at the kids or the families. They did nothing wrong. Not even frustrated at the system. In theory it is in place to make things fair, which I am in favor of. The frustration was with the execution the system.
This year it seems as if all of those loopholes have been closed. All of the previous Tier 3 “pockets” that I was aware of have been moved to Tier 4. I can only assume that there are other neighborhoods moving in the opposite direction in order to balance things out, but the only true “transparency” I can find about the Tiers is the interactive map that CPS links to on its website. And that only shows you what tier a specific address is in. There is no true “map” that I can find, nor is there anything showing changes.
Like a lot of this process, there is a lot of information that CSP simply does not share. Infer from that what you will.
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There is a number of students comming from outside Chicago or outside Illinois and they are placed in Tier 4. I think this will have an impact on the overall Tier 4 seats availability
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I think both cps-life and Privileged cries are correct.
Yes, the fact that we are here researching better educational options for our kids shows our relative privilege. There are kids whose parents are not even aware of options or busy working several low paying jobs trying to eek out a living, or simply the parents are not there for these kids.
At the same time, like cps life pointed out, there are plenty of truly rich tier 4 parents who can afford buying a 4th home in tier 1. Tier fraud is rampant, single families get caught, but so many do not. The tier system is not perfect. It would not be difficult to determine tiers by parent income, not zip code, but it is not done now and may never will be. Tier fraud is the real issue, not tier 4 packing. There is no tier 4 packing, tiers are equally spread among school aged kids.
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https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoollocator/index.html
This is the updated tier map (turn on the tier overlay), but it’s still frustrating because it says updated as of 2021, even though we’re in 2023. It is updated though, because last week the map had different colors and the tiers read updated as of 2020
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This tier update should’ve been stated before the application deadline. Went from tier 3 to 4 and def bummed out my student.
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We went from Tier 2 to Tier 1, so there are some areas that have gone down. We are on the north side of the city as well, so there are changes all over the city, both up and down.
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I believe CPS OAE is allowing families to adjust the ranking of selective and choice schools. Today is the last day to do so. I would imagine some parents ranking in a different order due to change in tier. Or maybe it doesn’t matter at all.
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Does anyone know the relative quantity and impact of non-Chicago (suburban, international) students who count as tier 4? I know the basis for the tiers is that the census zones are sorted low to high and assigned in 25% increments. But then when non-Chicago students are included in tier 4, that adds to the volume of Tier 4 students. I’m just curious by how much and if it’s a significant amount.
And yes I know it’s required to provide a chicago address when you go to register but I have some hearty skepticism on that front.
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We went from Tier 3 to 4. Our neighborhood has the lowest 6 factor score of all Tier 4s so we were last ones in. I’m not as annoyed that we are Tier 4. I’m most frustrated by the timing. Why couldn’t this have all been done in the summer before the application process started. My kid definitely ranked based on us being in Tier 3. We also didn’t take the Catholic School test based on her test score and being in Tier 3.
We will be fine wherever we end up. It’s just terrible timing.
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