Students applying to public high schools in New York City are still awaiting notification about the first round of admissions, which have been unusually delayed compared to previous years.
About 80,000 students and their families are in a state of limbo, on edge about which schools their student has been accepted to or rejected from. The application process lasts for months.
“And then they wait, and they wait, and they wait,” said Laura Zingmond, Senior Editor for InsideSchools at The New School. “And it’s where they end up for the next four years, so you can imagine the anxiety over that.”
I have been stressed out about my nieces high school admissions. Like checking the website every day. She's brilliant so I'm not worried, just anxious.
— chantibaby (@chantibaby_) March 12, 2019
A Department of Education spokesman said offer letters will not go out until later this month. For comparison, they went out on March 7 last year.
The reason for the delay can be traced back to an ongoing lawsuit challenging the city’s selection process for specialized high schools, according to spokesman Doug Cohen. He said the timing was “unfortunate.”
“We’ve provided updates to families over the past several weeks, and will send another notice a few days before offers are released,” said Cohen.
For families who are also applying to private schools, the delayed notification puts them in a potentially risky financial position: March 14 is the deadline to put down a hefty deposit at independent schools.
“It's a substantial sum of money, and there are thousands of parents throughout the metropolitan area who are in a similar situation,” said Ilene Jaroslaw, a parent of a ninth grader looking to transfer. The extended delay has made her daughter and other students “consumed with anxiety.”
The motion seeking an injunction over the city’s proposed expansion of the Discovery Program created an uncertain climate for the calculation of the available seats at specialized and non-specialized schools, according to the education department. In court filings from January, attorneys for the city asked Judge Edgardo Ramos to issue a ruling on the motion by Feb. 25 in order for them to notify families by March 18, “the latest feasible date to mail offer letters.”
Judge Ramos met that deadline, ruling late last month that the city could proceed with the adjusted admissions process. But the Department of Education will no longer publicly commit to sending out offer letters by March 18, instead only generally stating that notifications will go out this month.
The city originally planned to make offers to families on March 4, according to court filings.