SY 21-22 Admissions Data

The global COVID-19 pandemic posed many challenges to public education, disrupting critical aspects of how students access learning and interact with their school communities. As members of Boston Public Schools (BPS) banded together as a community on our response, several aspects of our work had to be reconsidered, including the admissions process for the district’s three exam schools: Boston Latin Academy, Boston Latin School, and the John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science. Given that many families selected remote learning and there were changing guidelines from public health officials about gatherings of students, it became clear that administering the annual exam would pose a series of challenges. 

The Superintendent formed a Working Group to develop recommendations on how to most equitably determine admissions to the exam schools. The Working Group reviewed current and historical admissions rates in Boston as well as models from other cities for increasing diversity and inclusion in their selective high schools. After meeting 13 times between August and October 2020, the Working Group presented a recommendation to the Superintendent that students be considered based on their grades and/or performance on the MCAS exams. Furthermore, the Working Group recommended assigning the first 20% of exam school seats in each school to the highest scoring students, citywide, and the remaining 80% of seats by highest GPA within zip codes. The stated goal of using zip codes was to ensure “that Boston’s exam schools can better reflect the socioeconomic, racial and geographic diversity of the City’s school age population,” increasing the number of students attending from traditionally underrepresented parts of the City. 

The Boston School Committee voted unanimously to adopt the October 21, 2020 recommendation of the Working Group for a one-year admissions process that reviewed student grades and performance on MCAS exams from the previous year, rather than administering the entrance exam. BPS sent all exam school invitations, including the 20% citywide and remaining 80% to students for the 2021 - 2022 school year on April 28, 2021. 

The results of our calculations show that the temporary admissions policy not only increased the number of invitations offered to students in historically underrepresented neighborhoods, it also increased the number of invitations sent to students who are English learners, students in special education programs, students in the care of the Department of Children and Families, and students experiencing homelessness. 

This summary includes information on exam school applicants and invitees for the 2021-22 school year, including breakdowns by grade, race, school type, socioeconomic status and student groups, including English learners, students with disabilities and students experiencing homelessness.