NYC Public Middle School Admissions: Strategies for Success

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Maybe one more minute to get started, just wait for people and then I'll hand it over to Maurice.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): All right, so let's get started. My name is Andrew Barber, and I am the Assistant Director in the Office of Work Life, where I help at Columbia University, where I help support families in their K-12 search. I'm really, really lucky to have… we are really lucky, as am I, to have Maurice Frumkin here to speak to us about

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Andrew Barber (he/him): the public middle school admissions process. I will let Maurice introduce himself and give you a little bit of a background about him. But suffice to say is that when I have questions about a process, be it the public school process or the private school process, I'm oftentimes in contact with Maurice.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): He is a fantastic resource and has some really wonderful advice and knows this process in and out.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Even as it constantly changes.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): So, as a brief sort of note about this presentation, we will be recording this Zoom, and we'll share it out with everyone. As we generally do, is that the presentation will be recorded. I will be monitoring the chat for any questions, so please feel free to put anything in there that you would like.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): And then at the end of his presentation, with time remaining, we'll stop the recording and then open it up to any sort of Q&A. And with that, Maurice, have at it.

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Maurice Frumkin: Andrew, you are too kind. I appreciate the introduction, and it is an honor to be here with you and, the Columbia community once again, so thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate that. And I'm going to try to make the best use of everyone's time over the next 45 to 50 minutes.

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Maurice Frumkin: Focusing on, as Andrew said, the public middle school admissions process. Really briefly, this is my background, so I'm in private practice. I have a practice called NYC Admission Solutions, so we work with families and schools and other institutions throughout the New York City area.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I was formerly with the DOE, now New York City Public Schools, Office of School Enrollment, working primarily on the high school admissions process, but also touching the middle school admissions process. And prior to that, I had been an independent school admissions officer, so I've been doing

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Maurice Frumkin: Jonathan Bein, middle school, high school placement work for quite some time now. I am the proud parent of a brand new middle school, daughter. My daughter just started 6th grade, also, so I can speak from that perspective, and

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Maurice Frumkin: She's doing well so far, so fingers crossed.

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Maurice Frumkin: So today we're going to talk about the process, give you a little overview, talk about public school application strategies and resources and practical next steps, and as Andrew said, we'll take some Q&A. I actually think this is a really good time to

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Maurice Frumkin: Start the conversation, even if you feel like you're starting from scratch.

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Maurice Frumkin: And we'll talk about why that is, and that's kind of a good segue to the, the timeline. So.

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Maurice Frumkin: If you happen to be a family that's applying to independent schools or many of the private schools throughout New York City, you may find yourself already in the midst of that application process, but from the standpoint of the public middle school admissions process, this date of October 14th is sort of relevant, because that's when things kind of kick off.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I, I want to preface this whole conversation by saying that.

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Maurice Frumkin: All the dates and deadlines and so forth that, you'll find from the DOE are…

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Maurice Frumkin: relevant in that it's not first come, first serve. In other words, this date of October 14th, it's not as if you have to complete your application by October 15th, or you have to retrieve certain data points by October 15th in order to have any kind of advantage.

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Maurice Frumkin: That is not the case. So, I always like to say this this time of year, because I know there's sort of a frantic rush to log into your public portal and get things started, and we'll talk more about what that means. So, I just want to be really clear about that. Not first come, first serve. Now, that said.

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Maurice Frumkin: After October 14th, and in the months to come, you will get a lot of information from New York City Public Schools in terms of how the application works.

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Maurice Frumkin: They have already started to announce information sessions that they're going to be holding. They actually start on October 20th. You may have gotten an email to that effect.

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Maurice Frumkin: And one of the first deadlines for the process is a — they call it the registration for testing deadline for the citywide school Mark Twain that is out in Coney Island.

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Maurice Frumkin: That historically has had an earlier deadline, and I'll talk in a few moments about what that means if you happen to be interested in Mark Twain Middle School.

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Maurice Frumkin: But for most students throughout the city.

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Maurice Frumkin: The period of time between October 14th and December 11th.

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Maurice Frumkin: is really the window when you have the opportunity to decide which programs you're interested in, list them on your application, because it is only one application.

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Maurice Frumkin: and decide what your preference is, what your order of preference is for the programs that you're applying to. So that's kind of in… I'm oversimplifying to a certain degree, because there's work associated with that that we'll talk about, but that's ultimately what you'll be doing before December 11th.

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Maurice Frumkin: And then again, if you're a family that's applying to independent schools.

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Maurice Frumkin: You will receive your results in mid-February.

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Maurice Frumkin: But for the public results, they come out in early April, and the DOE has announced that date, subject to change, as April 7th, when everybody will get the results from their application and find out where they were matched. So, when you're applying to, this might be a little review for everybody, but when you're applying to public middle school in New York City.

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Maurice Frumkin: It's primarily a process by which you're applying for sixth grade entry. There are a couple of exceptions where a couple of schools might have a primary entry point for seventh grade, for example. But today, we're going to be talking primarily about sixth grade placement.

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Maurice Frumkin: I'm also going to show you a slide in a moment that sort of, illustrates.

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Maurice Frumkin: The eligibility in terms of what kinds of programs you can apply to.

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Maurice Frumkin: So there are programs that have district priority. There are programs that are open to the entire borough. There are programs that are open to the entire city. I already gave you one of them in Mark Twain. So there are essentially three buckets that I'm going to show you in a moment that you can choose from.

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Maurice Frumkin: Depending upon which ones you're eligible to apply to.

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Maurice Frumkin: And as I mentioned already, also.

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Maurice Frumkin: There's 1 application. So, regardless of what

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Maurice Frumkin: The priority structure is, regardless of how programs admit students, which we will also talk about in a moment.

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Maurice Frumkin: Your job, again, by December 11th, is to list whatever programs you're interested in on one application.

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Maurice Frumkin: And rank them in your preference order. And you see results in April.

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Maurice Frumkin: We're also going to talk in a few moments about

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Maurice Frumkin: A phenomenon that's fairly unique to the public middle school admissions process in that there are sibling priorities.

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Maurice Frumkin: And there are some programs that still have an academic screen. The vast majority of them don't, so we'll get back to that in a moment as well. And this is sort of what I was just alluding to, which is that

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Maurice Frumkin: If you're applying to public middle school in the city.

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Maurice Frumkin: there are these 3 buckets. Now.

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Maurice Frumkin: Everybody lives in a district or attends school in a district because your district priority.

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Maurice Frumkin: Is based on where you live or go to school, by the way.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I'm a perfect example. I… where do I live? I live in District 13, and my daughter… or I should say I live in District 14, and my daughter used to attend school in District 13.

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Maurice Frumkin: So we were eligible to apply to both districts.

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Maurice Frumkin: And that would not happen had I lived in only one of the districts. So just something to keep in mind. District priority is generally a really powerful.

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Maurice Frumkin: Phenomenon associated with public middle school admissions. By the way, not as much so with the high school admissions process, where there's less district priority.

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Maurice Frumkin: So when you're applying to public middle school, we've got the district priority bucket.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I'll say… I actually want to say one more thing about that, because

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Maurice Frumkin: There used to be a time when you could only apply to your district programs.

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Maurice Frumkin: That is no longer the case.

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Maurice Frumkin: I'll use myself as an example again. We live in District 14. We applied to a District 15 middle school.

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Maurice Frumkin: We may have even applied to another district's middle school outside of our district.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because we could, knowing that we would fall into a lower priority group.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because most schools give priority to their own district.

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Maurice Frumkin: But we could and we took a chance and we said, what the heck? We really like that school and it's within proximity.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, it is a citywide choice process subject to district priorities.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I'll get back to that concept in a few moments. So we've got the district priority schools. Everybody has them.

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Maurice Frumkin: Then we've got borough eligibility schools, or I should say borough-wide schools, which basically means that

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Maurice Frumkin: These schools do not have district priority per se. Anybody in the borough has sort of an equal shot.

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Maurice Frumkin: So you can apply to any of these borough-wide programs in the borough that you live, and by the way.

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Maurice Frumkin: In each borough, there are some programs that fall into this category that are borough-wide.

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Maurice Frumkin: Not a lot of them, but there are a handful of borough wide programs in each borough, and you may or may not be interested in them.

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Maurice Frumkin: But you have the… you can be eligible to apply to those as well. And then finally.

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Maurice Frumkin: We've got the citywide

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Maurice Frumkin: options. And I wanted to sort of put some examples of the citywide options up here. You can see Mark Twain smack dab in the middle there, which I've talked about already.

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Maurice Frumkin: So… The unique defining characteristic of these schools is that

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Maurice Frumkin: Anybody can apply, there's no district priority.

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Maurice Frumkin: And there may be some other screening criteria, whether it's looking at grades, looking at an audition, whatever the case may be.

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Maurice Frumkin: But there's no district priority.

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Maurice Frumkin: So…

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Maurice Frumkin: Again, I'll use myself an example. We applied to — I won't mention the name, but we applied to one of the other schools in Manhattan that are here that are citywide programs because we knew we had a shot. And again, it was within proximity.

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Maurice Frumkin: And there's a phenomenon in middle school, public middle school admissions in the city whereby

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Maurice Frumkin: you know, this… this… certainly, we could have conversation for hours about, equity and… in the city. There is a phenomenon by which, depending upon which district you're in.

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Maurice Frumkin: You know, you may have a more robust

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Maurice Frumkin: offerings in terms of quality middle schools.

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Maurice Frumkin: So the reason why I say that is because depending upon which district you're in, you may find yourself.

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Maurice Frumkin: looking, seeking out more options that are either borough-wide or citywide.

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Maurice Frumkin: So these are… these are some of the citywide options, and you can see the asterisk and the… the plus mark next to a few of them. Some of them

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Maurice Frumkin: Despite the fact that most.

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Maurice Frumkin: District schools around the city are completely lottery based.

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Maurice Frumkin: So they don't look at grades, they don't look at test scores. And we'll talk more about the lottery in a moment, because I know that is a source of frustration and confusion for a lot of people.

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Maurice Frumkin: The vast majority of programs throughout the city are lottery-based. These are a few of the exceptions.

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Maurice Frumkin: So there are some schools that have some kind of screen based on final 4th grade course marks in your major courses.

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Maurice Frumkin: There are a couple of these that have a talent test or an assessment. Mark Twain has multiple programs. You can apply to up to two.

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Maurice Frumkin: within Mark Twain, And each of them has some kind of assessment, talent test, audition, etc.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, some of these have auditions. Obviously, some of the performing arts schools, PPAS, Professional Performing Arts School, Special Music, have auditions. So, if you're a… if you have a 5th grader that's thinking about

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Maurice Frumkin: you know, applying to more of an arts focused program.

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Maurice Frumkin: and is already kind of getting ready for those auditions, or you didn't even know that those auditions existed. Now's a great time to familiarize yourself with those auditions.

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Maurice Frumkin: And all of the audition guidelines and so forth are on the DOE website. They're very transparent, so you know what to do between now and early December.

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Maurice Frumkin: I'm getting ahead of myself, but I wanted to talk about that while we're talking about auditions.

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Maurice Frumkin: And then finally on this slide, you notice a couple of schools that continue to 12th grade.

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Maurice Frumkin: That could, you know, I work with a lot of families where that becomes important, right, so it gives you.

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Maurice Frumkin: A school that continues from middle school to high school, Nest Plus M, Ice School of the Future, etc.

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Maurice Frumkin: These are schools that continue from middle school to high school, you have a guarantee.

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Maurice Frumkin: of continuing In that school for high school, if you choose to.

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Maurice Frumkin: You don't have to.

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Maurice Frumkin: But I can tell you, working with a lot of families on high school admissions process, it's a really nice guarantee to have.

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Maurice Frumkin: At worst, as a backup.

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Maurice Frumkin: Right? So these are schools that continue to 12th grade. Now, if you're saying to yourself, well, I'm not really sure where to start, I don't have a list, I have no idea what my… even my district school landscape is like.

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Maurice Frumkin: First of all, Starting this month and through the month of October, especially October and November.

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Maurice Frumkin: There are a lot of schools that have open houses and tours.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I'm going to show you a calendar in a second that you'll be able to access to keep track of these, in addition to, obviously, going onto the school websites.

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Maurice Frumkin: But in the meantime, if you're saying to yourself, oh, what do I do? I haven't seen any of these places yet.

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Maurice Frumkin: I don't know… How to make the most efficient use of my time.

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Maurice Frumkin: How… why would I sign up for…

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Maurice Frumkin: All these, you know, 15, 20 tours just on the basis of word of mouth.

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Maurice Frumkin: Without having any sense of what these schools are like. So, Inside Schools is, I think, a great resource to use in the interim, so that at least you can sort of start to narrow down

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Maurice Frumkin: And filter and sort based on criteria that's important to you and I like that Inside Schools gives you the opportunity to set up a free account and you can do that you can start to build a list.

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Maurice Frumkin: And, you know, at least have a population of schools that… that are within reason, in terms of proximity and otherwise.

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Maurice Frumkin: This is the calendar that I, that I mentioned a moment ago where you can start to track middle school events.

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Maurice Frumkin: Now, again, after October 14th, you'll be able to log into your MySchools account.

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Maurice Frumkin: This calendar, which is on the myschools.nyc website, so you can go there now, even without logging in. You can go there now if you haven't seen this already.

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Maurice Frumkin: and start to track middle school events. This was actually a screenshot I took maybe a day or two ago. And you can see, even in October, there's a lot going on. I checked in the middle school button in the middle, because I just wanted middle school events.

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Maurice Frumkin: And there's a lot going on in October, and I can guarantee that even over the next 2-3 weeks, this calendar's gonna continue to fill up with events.

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Maurice Frumkin: Now… The reason why I mentioned logging in versus not logging in is because when you log in.

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Maurice Frumkin: you'll be able to see events that represent schools that you're eligible to apply to, and in some cases, you'll be able to register for them directly through your MySchools account. So, just something to be on the lookout for. I think MySchools, over the past couple years, has done a much better job of helping families track events.

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Maurice Frumkin: And register for them, in a very seamless way.

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Maurice Frumkin: Now, if for some reason. And then we'll move on. You don't see a school's event on this calendar, on myschools.nyc Don't be frustrated. It's probably one of two things going on right now. Either one.

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Maurice Frumkin: They haven't announced their events yet, which does happen. Or number two.

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Maurice Frumkin: I would say there's a small percentage of time when schools don't even list these, their events on this calendar.

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Maurice Frumkin: which I think is frustrating, but… and much to the DOE's chagrin, these schools, are not populating the calendar with their events, because it's a self-reported

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Maurice Frumkin: kind of thing. So, when in doubt, maybe check the school website, sign up for their emails, just so you're notified about them. So, after October 14th.

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Maurice Frumkin: You'll be able to log in.

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Maurice Frumkin: So you can go there now, you can go to myschools.nyc now, but you can't do anything, there's nothing you can do even if you could log in.

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Maurice Frumkin: which, by the way, you know, if you have a my school's account, you can log into your my school's account.

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Maurice Frumkin: But you won't be able to activate your fifth grader for the current public middle school admissions process yet.

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Maurice Frumkin: And even if you could.

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Maurice Frumkin: There's nothing you can do yet until after October 14, th because the DOE Physically does not.

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Maurice Frumkin: open the application system until after October 14.th So you're not missing anything.

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Maurice Frumkin: And by the way, I, I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but you may remember the way we started out the conversation when I said that.

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Maurice Frumkin: Even after October 14th, it's not first come, first serve.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because I know one thing, we're going to talk about lottery number in a moment. A lot of people are already wondering about lottery number, and they're anticipating the opening of my schools, and they're saying, I'm going to get on it on October 14th. I know Andrew's shaking his head. I'm going to get on this.

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Maurice Frumkin: as soon as I hear from the DOE on October 14th. It's not going to give you a better lottery number than if you log on on October 15th or October 20th.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, just… To the degree that maybe takes a little bit of pressure off of you.

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Maurice Frumkin: So after October 14th.

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Maurice Frumkin: Let me actually go back to this slide. You're going to land on a dashboard and you'll, there's a little button, I'm sorry, I don't think I have a picture of it, but it says start middle school application.

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Maurice Frumkin: So as soon as you log in, you click on a button that starts… that says, start middle school application.

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Maurice Frumkin: And the reason why I say to do that is because

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Maurice Frumkin: For all the families that are thinking, what's my lottery number? What's my lottery number?

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Maurice Frumkin: That is how you generate a lottery number.

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Maurice Frumkin: There are literally…

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Maurice Frumkin: I always, I hate using the word literary because, you know, my daughter uses it every 3 words.

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Maurice Frumkin: But I think it applies here, there are literally no lottery numbers yet.

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Maurice Frumkin: There are none, they don't exist yet.

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Maurice Frumkin: Your lottery number does not exist until you click get started with your middle school application. The computer does not generate it until then.

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Maurice Frumkin: So when you click on Get Started, you'll go to your — there's something called your MySchool's profile page, Edit Profile, which is also on the first page when you log in. You'll see a little button that says Edit Profile. And you'll see something like this, where you can see your application random number. It's a long string of digits, which we'll talk more about in a few moments.

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Maurice Frumkin: You will also see things like your seat group and your meal status and your grades, which we're also going to talk about in a moment. But this is a good page to look at.

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Maurice Frumkin: just to see if anything is missing. By the way, if you happen to be in an independent school.

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Maurice Frumkin: you will not see grades right away, because it takes the DOE a week or two sometimes to upload some information that's been provided from your school. If you're in a public school, you'll see grades right away.

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Maurice Frumkin: Everybody… let me go back to this slide. At the top of the screen, you see everybody's eligible for a C group. In this case, it says GE, which means General Ed C Group. There are two options. Well, I shouldn't even say options, because you don't choose this. You're either placed in a general ed C group.

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Maurice Frumkin: or the students with disabilities C group, which the DOE calls the SWDC group. So for every program you apply to, there are these two separate C groups.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I'm trying to get the terminology right, because I want to be consistent with the verbiage that you hear from the DOE. They call it C-groups.

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Maurice Frumkin: Everybody falls automatically into a C group and they are literally There I go again.

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Maurice Frumkin: two distinct… Applicant pools, completely separate applicant pools.

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Maurice Frumkin: For the… for every program.

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Maurice Frumkin: So if I'm in the general Ed applicant pool, which most students are.

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Maurice Frumkin: I can see for this particular program, this is a hypothetical example, last year for the general ed program, C group, there were 50 seats.

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Maurice Frumkin: and 611 applicants. Pretty high demand program. 12 applicants per seat.

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Maurice Frumkin: Pretty high demand, right?

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Maurice Frumkin: Students with disability C group was different, and it usually is.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because… The… theory behind this?

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Maurice Frumkin: Is that the DOE has created these separate applicant pools because they are saying essentially to every public middle school.

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Maurice Frumkin: You have an obligation to take a certain percentage of students with IEPs or an IESP.

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Maurice Frumkin: You have an obligation. You're a public school. So the DOE, several years back, created these two distinct seat groups, and you will see it is very common for there to be different applicant-to-seat ratios, different number of seats that are offered, different number of applicants, etc, etc.

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Maurice Frumkin: And by the way, the numbers you see

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Maurice Frumkin: When you log after October 14th, I don't think this is updated yet, but after October 14th, you will see these numbers will reflect

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Maurice Frumkin: Jonathan Bein, last year's application process. So they will be completely updated and reflect the latest and greatest numbers.

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Maurice Frumkin: This is important.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because we're going to talk about

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Maurice Frumkin: I mean, it's really even, in some ways, even more important than for students that are applying to high school. The reason why I'm saying that is because

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Maurice Frumkin: The DOE has devised a system

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Maurice Frumkin: I don't want to talk too much about high school placement today, but the DOA has devised a system to help families understand what their chances are of getting into programs they're applying to.

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Maurice Frumkin: And it's basically a bar graph.

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Maurice Frumkin: For middle school admissions, they haven't done that yet.

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Maurice Frumkin: I don't know why they haven't. I think they should.

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Maurice Frumkin: But… My point is that.

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Maurice Frumkin: One of the factors that's going to determine your chances of getting into your program is demand, right? It's going to be hard. Generally speaking, it's going to be harder for me to get into a program that's 12 applicants per seat.

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Maurice Frumkin: than a program that's 8 applicants per seat, or 3 or 2 applicants per seat, right?

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Maurice Frumkin: And they're out there. They're a wide range of, you know, program demand.

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Maurice Frumkin: Okay, we're gonna get back to that in a moment. Hold that thought.

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Maurice Frumkin: When you are…

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Maurice Frumkin: James D. On the left-hand side of the screen, you can sort of see another example of this from Wagner Middle School. This happens to be the screen program at Wagner Middle School, so you'll see, last year, if you went to my schools, I… this is from

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Maurice Frumkin: A couple days ago. Last year, I clicked on the Wagner Screen Program. You can see for the General Ed Secret, which is clicked off.

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Maurice Frumkin: The little button.

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Maurice Frumkin: Let me put my cursor here. So, General Ed.

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Maurice Frumkin: There are two applicants per seat. There were two applicants per seat last year for this program.

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Maurice Frumkin: 262 applicants, 145 seats. It's a big school.

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Maurice Frumkin: Right? They probably made, to fill 145 seats, they probably made something like

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Maurice Frumkin: 175, 180, 190 offers to fill 145 seats. Two applicants per seat. So, this is a pretty good example of

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Maurice Frumkin: You know, if I'm applying to this program.

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Maurice Frumkin: I have a pretty decent chance.

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Maurice Frumkin: Now, it happens to be a screen program, which means final fourth grade academics are going to play a role.

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Maurice Frumkin: But it's not as if if I apply to this program, it's a 20 to one applicant to Z ratio, right? By the way.

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Maurice Frumkin: If I'm automatically placed in the Students with Disabilities Seek group.

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Maurice Frumkin: and I didn't clarify this, I apologize.

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Maurice Frumkin: Who's in the students with disabilities applicant secret? There are students who are automatically designated based on either your IESP if you're in an independent school or your IEP if you're in a public school.

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Maurice Frumkin: The DOE threshold for falling into the separate students with disabilities C group is you have to receive supports for more than 20% of your instructional program, your weekly instructional program.

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Maurice Frumkin: So…

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Maurice Frumkin: If you… if your child has an IEP or an IESP, and you're wondering if you're going to qualify, the easiest way to do it, I mean, you can talk to your counselor, of course.

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Maurice Frumkin: But after October 14th, you'll also see that designation in your MySchools profile. You'll see the seat group you're in.

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Maurice Frumkin: Last thing I want to say here, though. Well, a couple more things on this slide.

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Maurice Frumkin: If you are in the students with disability C group.

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Maurice Frumkin: You will… when you log into your MySchool's profile, it will automatically default to the students with disability seeker.

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Maurice Frumkin: In other words, you're not going to have to toggle back and forth between these two C curves. It's going to give you one.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because you don't have… again, this is not a choice.

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Maurice Frumkin: So…

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Maurice Frumkin: Your job between October 14th and December 11th is to decide how you want to populate this application, like you see kind of cut off in the middle of the screen here. You will… you can, click off, there's a little star, you can favorite your favorite programs, add them to your application. You can play with this as much as you want.

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Maurice Frumkin: Until December 11th.

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Maurice Frumkin: After December 11th, all bets are off. But you can change this, the ranking and the programs that you put on the application. You can change this as much as you want between now and December 11th.

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Maurice Frumkin: Nothing is going to matter until after that deadline.

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Maurice Frumkin: And again, when you're choosing, when you're populating the MySchools application in your MySchools account.

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Maurice Frumkin: And it's very easy to do. I think you'll find it really easy.

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Maurice Frumkin: The more programs you list, the better.

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Maurice Frumkin: I mean, the more the better, that you're willing to consider.

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Maurice Frumkin: I can tell you statistically, in recent years.

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Maurice Frumkin: If you're wondering, families that list at least 12 programs that you're willing to list at least 12 programs on your application, you stand nearly 100% chance of getting matched to one of the programs you listed.

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Maurice Frumkin: So just if you're wondering what's a good rule of thumb for the number of programs, I should list 12 right now, 12 or more is a good rule of thumb.

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Maurice Frumkin: Okay, let's move on. So, at the end of the day.

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Maurice Frumkin: James D. They're going to… the DOE is going to take all your choices, and they're going to run this secretive, mysterious algorithm based on all these different factors.

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Maurice Frumkin: And it's going to spit out a match from how you rank your application. So what's really important is how you rank them, your preference order, because the algorithm is going to take that into account.

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Maurice Frumkin: We're going to talk about more about ranking in a moment. It's also going to take into account, remember before we talked about some priority groups. Am I applying to a program where I fall into a lower priority group? Maybe it's outside of my district.

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Maurice Frumkin: Maybe I'm applying to a program that

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Maurice Frumkin: That prioritizes a certain percentage of students.

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Maurice Frumkin: That are eligible for free and reduced price lunch.

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Maurice Frumkin: which, by the way, requires self-reported income. There are certain thresholds that the DOE requires for that.

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Maurice Frumkin: So my match is going to depend on all these factors.

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Maurice Frumkin: Priority structure, we kind of talked about this, so some… programs, in fact, most middle school programs have some kind of priority structure. This particular program that we're looking at in front of us.

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Maurice Frumkin: Is part of the diversity and admissions initiative, so basically what that means is when you see this kind of thing in the middle, this

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Maurice Frumkin: particular program has allocated 17% of their seats. They've prioritized 17% of their seats who are eligible for students who are eligible for free and reduced price lunch. Now, within that

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Maurice Frumkin: subcategory Free and reduced price lunch.

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Maurice Frumkin: Everybody's considered the same way as anybody else.

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Maurice Frumkin: So in this particular case, you'll see at the bottom of the screen, this is an open lottery-based program.

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Maurice Frumkin: So even in that priority group, the diversity and missions segment.

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Maurice Frumkin: Everybody's considered by lottery.

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Maurice Frumkin: But the rest of the 83% of students are open to anybody.

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Maurice Frumkin: Bill Miller, And you can see for this program. Bill Miller, This program's open to New York City. There's no district priority, right? So this is probably, you know, this is a hypothetical program, it's probably a citywide program, because there are no district priorities.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, I'm essentially… if I do not qualify for free and reduced price lunch.

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Maurice Frumkin: I'm essentially competing with the remaining 83 for for the remaining 83% of seats.

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Maurice Frumkin: in in a lottery.

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Maurice Frumkin: And also, by the way, I look at the demand from last year. I'm in the Students with Disabilities Seat Group, right?

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Maurice Frumkin: That's automatically checked off up top here.

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Maurice Frumkin: James D. for the students with disability secret for this program. It's 3 applicants per seat. So I feel like, you know, I feel like my chances are pretty good for that program.

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Maurice Frumkin: These are just some of the different types of priorities. So there's free and reduced price lunch, we talked about geographic priority, district priority.

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Maurice Frumkin: Some districts have zoned middle schools.

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Maurice Frumkin: Some.

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Maurice Frumkin: So if I live in District 2 in Manhattan, for example, I know I have a zone middle school.

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Maurice Frumkin: Everybody does.

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Maurice Frumkin: If I live in District 3 in Manhattan, I don't have a zone middle school.

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Maurice Frumkin: So that's not odd. That is common for a lot of districts throughout New York City.

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Maurice Frumkin: If I go to an elementary school that continues to middle school, guess what? I'm also going to get priority.

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Maurice Frumkin: And…

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Maurice Frumkin: I think in a moment we're going to talk about sibling priorities, so hold that thought for a moment. These are on the DOE website. You will see a listing.

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Maurice Frumkin: of all the middle schools in New York City that are part of this diverse Dia. They call it the diversity and admissions initiative.

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Maurice Frumkin: Every school in District 3, for example, is part of that.

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Maurice Frumkin: So they… you'll see every school in District 3 will allocate this certain percentage for free and reduced lunch.

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Maurice Frumkin: The schools that are listed at the bottom are other schools throughout the city outside of the districts that you see on top of the page. So it's good to know that, but aside from this table on the DOE website.

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Maurice Frumkin: and I forgot to mention this.

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Maurice Frumkin: Not only will these priorities be listed in your MySchools account, but it tells you, once you're logged in, it automatically tells you what priority group you fall into.

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Maurice Frumkin: So you don't have to wonder.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I really like that about the MySchools process, the MySchools system over the past couple of years. You don't have to wait, wait a second. Does that mean I'm in district, I'm in priority group two or three? What priority group I'm in? It tells you exactly which one.

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Maurice Frumkin: There is a sibling priority policy also for middle schools in New York City.

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Maurice Frumkin: So what does that mean? That means if you already have a child who's in a middle school and your younger child is applying to that same school.

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Maurice Frumkin: they may get priority. I'm trying to be really careful with my words, because I… it's not across the board.

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Maurice Frumkin: If there… and you see, I highlighted on the bottom of the page some exceptions.

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Maurice Frumkin: to this rule.

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Maurice Frumkin: If you're applying to programs that are audition-based, that are language criteria, that are talent tests, like Mark Twain, that have a screened admissions method, those don't have a sibling priority.

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Maurice Frumkin: So the, the, the converse of that is that if I'm applying to a school that, a program that is an open program.

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Maurice Frumkin: I will get priority if my older child belongs to that school. So there is some, some, something like, there is something called sibling priority for middle school admissions, not high school admissions, by the way.

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Maurice Frumkin: And these are some of the admission methods. So I've sort of been talking about this interspersed throughout the talk so far, depending upon the programs you talk you apply to.

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Maurice Frumkin: Some are lottery based, which are most of them.

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Maurice Frumkin: Some have some kind of screening based on 4th grade course marks, some have a talent test that you should be aware of.

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Maurice Frumkin: Some have an audition. I mean those 2 categories, by the way, talent test audition.

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Maurice Frumkin: This is really important. As you're starting to develop your list of programs that you're interested in to make note of that right? Because you don't want to miss that.

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Maurice Frumkin: You don't want to find out at the end of November that, oops, this program that I'm applying to has some kind of other requirement that I'm supposed to fulfill.

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Maurice Frumkin: And from a practical perspective, I love it when students

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Maurice Frumkin: Show up at an open house, or a performance.

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Maurice Frumkin: something that's open to the public. It doesn't have to be a formal admissions event.

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Maurice Frumkin: And they ask questions and they talk to people and maybe they get some tips.

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Maurice Frumkin: about the audition process. You never know when you're going to hear that golden nugget right?

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Maurice Frumkin: That gives you insight into how to prepare for these things.

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Maurice Frumkin: And then there are zone programs, which some students have, some don't.

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Maurice Frumkin: and language criteria programs which are geared towards students who have been typically living in the Us. For less than 4 years for English language learners. So I want to talk about lottery number, because this is a question that comes up all the time. So everybody gets one. Everybody that's applying to middle school gets one.

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Maurice Frumkin: It is completely randomly generated.

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Maurice Frumkin: It has nothing to do with your grades or where you go to school or where you live.

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Maurice Frumkin: Or when you log into my schools, Completely random.

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Maurice Frumkin: If you know anything about the hexadecimal system, it's based on that system. So it is. I showed you a screenshot before where you'll see this random number on your my schools page. It's a long string of digits.

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Maurice Frumkin: I was just saying, see if I have a… I'll show you the next screenshot. It's a long string of digits, but you can tell, if you know anything about this hexadecimal system, you can tell a lot

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Maurice Frumkin: By the first digit.

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Maurice Frumkin: The 1st digit, even though this is, this is a long string of digits.

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Maurice Frumkin: The first digit, there's a range.

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Maurice Frumkin: And the range goes from 0 to 9.

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Maurice Frumkin: Jonathan Bein, And then after 9, there's no 10, then it goes to A, the letter A, like Apple, through F, like Frank. So the entire range for the first digit

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Maurice Frumkin: goes from 0 to F.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, as you can see on the slide in front of you.

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Maurice Frumkin: In a vacuum.

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Maurice Frumkin: And I'm going to explain what I mean by that in a moment. In a vacuum, if I'm only looking at the lottery number, and I'm not looking at anything else, I'm not paying attention to demand of the program, I'm not paying attention to screened groups.

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Maurice Frumkin: or a screening. I'm not paying attention to auditions. I'm not paying attention to priority groups, district priority, or any other.

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Maurice Frumkin: Only lottery number.

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Maurice Frumkin: this chart will help you kind of get a sense of the… the… how strong or not so strong your lottery number is. If I have a lottery number that starts with 0, that's one of the best lottery numbers. If I have a lottery number that starts with F.

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Maurice Frumkin: That's what that's some of the weakest lottery numbers. I'll tell you, we got a lottery number started with the letter E like Edward. And I was like, Oh my goodness, are you kidding me?

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Maurice Frumkin: It happens to the best of us. It's completely random.

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Maurice Frumkin: But just in a vacuum to get a sense. Now, if you're interested in the, you know, which percentile is associated with exactly the lottery number you get, it's very easy to look that up. This is publicly available information. If you just looked up New York City lottery system or hexadecimal system, you can very easily do that once you get the lottery number. One last thing, though, that

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Maurice Frumkin: if you can, if you can, you can gather this already by what I what I've been talking about.

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Maurice Frumkin: If I apply to a program that's outside of the district, my district.

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Maurice Frumkin: And it's a lottery-based program.

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Maurice Frumkin: And… but it's outside of my priority district.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, I live in District 13, I applied to a District 15 middle school.

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Maurice Frumkin: I have the best lottery number in the city, so I'm thinking to myself, well, wow, I'm good to go. I have the best lottery. But no.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because I fall in the second priority group.

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Maurice Frumkin: So this is just a small, quick example of where

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Maurice Frumkin: Looking at lottery number in a vacuum can be misleading. It's not all about lottery number. Sometimes we I have a lot of families that say to me, and I'm sure you do too, Andrew, that say it's all one big lottery system and it's all about the lottery number.

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Maurice Frumkin: Be cautious of that. It's not all about the lottery number.

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Maurice Frumkin: Ranking. So how do you rank your programs on your application? True preference order.

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Maurice Frumkin: True preference order. Schools do not see how you rank.

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Maurice Frumkin: That's number one, but the other reason why it's really important to do this is because

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Maurice Frumkin: If you put a program on the top of your application, you rank it first.

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Maurice Frumkin: The algorithm is going to look at that program and try to match you to that program first.

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Maurice Frumkin: And if you try to play games or strategize somehow, which I know a lot of people do, it could really backfire. If you put a program first, that's not truly your first choice. And you get in there and you're saying to yourself, well, wait a second, that wasn't really my first choice. You don't want to do that. But here's the other reason I say this.

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Maurice Frumkin: If you put a program third, well, let me rephrase that.

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Maurice Frumkin: A lot of families say to me, well, Maurice, I don't want to put a program second or third or fourth or fifth or lower because it's a waste. It's a waste of choice. Why would I do that?

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Maurice Frumkin: Everybody that gets a seat is gonna list it first.

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Maurice Frumkin: No, that's not the way the algorithm works. And I'll I'll give you one quick example. Let's say

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Maurice Frumkin: I like giving the lottery example, too. Let's say I placed lottery program a As my second choice.

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Maurice Frumkin: Jim Brown, Lottery Program A as my second choice. And another student chose Lottery Program A as their first choice.

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Maurice Frumkin: A lot of people will think, well, the other surgeon, because they put it first, is going to get in ahead of me. But wait a second.

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Maurice Frumkin: If I don't get into my first choice.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because remember, the algorithm starts with your first choice. If I don't get into my first choice, the algorithm goes right down to my second choice, and that effectively becomes my new first choice.

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Maurice Frumkin: It's not like all the seats are gone.

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Maurice Frumkin: Then, I'm on an even… effectively an even footing with the other student that put it first, and guess what? I have a better lottery number.

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Maurice Frumkin: So I'm always going to get in to that program, lottery program A, ahead of the other student, even though I put it second.

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Maurice Frumkin: But only if I don't get matched to my top choice.

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Maurice Frumkin: Right? So you should not feel pressure

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Maurice Frumkin: to list in any other order other than your true preference order. And please don't feel like, well, if I put something lower, I have no chance because all the seats are going to be gone. It doesn't work like that.

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Maurice Frumkin: This is on student on the right hand side of the screen.

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Maurice Frumkin: Jonathan Bein, You have an example of the kind of application we really like to see. It's, you know, they're a good, robust number of programs, but it's not just the number of programs, it's…

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Maurice Frumkin: Highly diversified in terms of the types of programs. Please ignore EdOp. That's more of a high school phenomenon. But you get the idea here. There are different admissions methods. Some are screened. Some are open. Some might be talent tests.

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Maurice Frumkin: Some are highly selective, some are moderately selective, some are lower selective. This is what, when I was talking before about what I don't like about the middle school process.

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Maurice Frumkin: You know, I mentioned for when you're applying to high school.

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Maurice Frumkin: The DOE helps you decipher your chances.

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Maurice Frumkin: Because if you're looking at this and you're saying, well, Maurice, how do I tell what's highly selective, what's less selective? I don't know.

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Maurice Frumkin: I have to, you're telling me I have to interpret my priority group and demand and lottery number and all this nonsense.

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Maurice Frumkin: And for the high school admissions process, guess what? The DOE helps you with that. They give you this little offer chances bar is what they call.

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Maurice Frumkin: And they help you interpret all this, all this stuff so you don't have to. For the middle school process, they haven't done that yet.

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Maurice Frumkin: I mean, I and I have no reason to believe they're going to do it this year. I hope I'm wrong.

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Maurice Frumkin: But I… reading the tea leaves, I don't think it's gonna happen this year. But…

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Maurice Frumkin: Your counselor can help you, right? We can help you decide, you know, interpret what is a highly diversified application and what is not.

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Maurice Frumkin: like the application that's on the left hand side of the screen right? And, by the way.

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Maurice Frumkin: You may… you… let's say I live in District 2,

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Maurice Frumkin: and I want to go to my zoned middle school.

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Maurice Frumkin: And that's all I care about.

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Maurice Frumkin: That is essentially a guarantee. I mean, the DOE is never going to tell you it's a guarantee, because technically it's not.

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Maurice Frumkin: but it is the surest thing to a guarantee, the closest thing to a guarantee there is.

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Maurice Frumkin: So if you…

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Maurice Frumkin: I want to contextualize, if I put my zone program at the bottom of my list on the left-hand side, I'm feeling a lot better about this, because

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Maurice Frumkin: I can be rest assured that if I don't get one of my top A programs, at least I'm going to get my zone program at the bottom. That's going to be a nice backup. So, middle school results. Again, if I apply to different types of schools, parochial, independent, I'm going to get those results first. Public results come out in April.

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Maurice Frumkin: And here's a quick checklist. Sign up for DOE emails if you haven't already because they're starting to talk about the process and what to expect. And here are some informations coming up.

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Maurice Frumkin: information sessions, and be on the lookout October 14th, things are gonna start to go live, etc, etc. If your child is considering assessment programs, audition programs.

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Maurice Frumkin: You want to flag those programs. Obviously, you should be building your list up.

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Maurice Frumkin: You've got plenty of time to narrow things down.

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Maurice Frumkin: We don't want to narrow too, prematurely and end up in a position where, number one, you don't see a lot of places because you eliminated a lot of schools.

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Maurice Frumkin: And number two, we don't want to end up with a list of three, four, or five programs where you just don't have enough.

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Maurice Frumkin: So this is the time to still be building your list up.

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Maurice Frumkin: Monitoring for school events, they're starting to happen. And, and again, after the 14th, you'll be able to log in and get all your lottery number and so forth. These are just some key resources. I mean, I think if you do nothing else on this page, go to schools.nyc.gov slash sign up.

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Maurice Frumkin: sign up for DOE emails, get… just get in the loop with what they're talking about. And this is just my… my own contact information, my little public service… public service announcement. Happy to talk to anybody,

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Maurice Frumkin: And, you know, with everything from pre-K all the way through college admissions and with that, I think I'm gonna

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Maurice Frumkin: bring back Andrew, if I'm not mistaken?

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Yeah, I'm back, I'm back. Thank you so much. There were a bunch of really great questions, in the chat. I'll pose a couple of them to you, but then…

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Andrew Barber (he/him): I have some additional ones. One, the… was… was apparent was that… that some of… was noticing that some of the middle school open houses have already been all booked in… in October. So what should…

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Andrew Barber (he/him): What should a parent do when they identify a school that they really like, but

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Andrew Barber (he/him): they go on, and the open houses in October are gone. What is… who should they be in touch with? Where should they go to sort of be aware of that? Will there be more open houses sort of added to that school? What should… what should they do? And how… how… what would your

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Best advice be.

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Maurice Frumkin: It's a great question, and this happens… it's a source of frustration every year. Couple things come to mind. Number one is there are absolutely some schools that will add another batch of events, might add some events later on. I think it's perfectly okay to contact the school. Sometimes I recommend contacting the parent coordinator and ask them for their advice. Ask them what they recommend.

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Maurice Frumkin: If for some reason you try these things when nothing pops up and they say, sorry, you're out of luck, there's nothing else coming up.

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Maurice Frumkin: Look for any other events that are open to the public, you know, sometimes these schools have

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Maurice Frumkin: A performance or an art competition or debate or something like that, that.

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Maurice Frumkin: you know, is maybe co-hosted by the PTA, and they're trying to raise money, and they want people there. Those are some things to be on the lookout for, too. And frankly, some of those can… where you can get really valuable information, even more valuable sometimes than the formal admissions events.

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Maurice Frumkin: And then last thing is, you know, there are, I expect there will be some middle school fairs scattered throughout the city as well, so check the My Schools calendar as well, because those might pop up as well, where you might see a Manhattan Middle School Fair, or a District X Middle School Fair kind of thing.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): There's another question in the chat in the sense of that for a middle school with a regular program and an accelerated program, are those separate applications or just one application?

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Maurice Frumkin: So if there are two programs that are, let's take Wagner for example, they have a screen program and a non-screen program. There are two separate spots on the application. So it basically gives you two shots of getting into Wagner. Usually schools.

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Maurice Frumkin: I don't want to say this is universal necessarily, but for many schools.

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Maurice Frumkin: Once you're in the school, it doesn't really matter that much. A lot of these programs were set up for the purposes of middle school admissions.

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Maurice Frumkin: to ensure that they get some students that were screened and some that weren't, for example. But that's a fair question to ask the middle schools in terms of what they recommend. Most middle schools will tell you. If you're interested in the school, just apply to both of them.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Yep.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): If, and now here's here, please, parents, please, add… continue to add any questions into the chat, but here's a question that I have just in general, and this happens quite frequently with the families that we support.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Is that if you log… when you log into your Screen School portable, and that first page is, like, all the biographical information, your students' grades.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): If for some reason there's something that you recog… you're like, wait a minute, that doesn't look right, who would you recommend? Let's say you're… I'm gonna ask two… two questions. One, you're in a public school and something doesn't look right.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): who would you recommend going and talking to? If you're in a private school, and you're seeing, and a portal has been set up to you, you log in, and there's something doesn't look right, who would you recommend speaking to?

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Maurice Frumkin: So for a public school definitely go to your counselor first.st If you don't know who your counselor is, you can always talk to another administrator at the school to to point you in the right direction. Ii would avoid

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Maurice Frumkin: you know, the… sometimes the initial reaction is, I'm going to reach out to the Office of Enrollment or something like that. I wouldn't even waste your time doing that. Go to your counselor first.

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Maurice Frumkin: For a student that's in an independent school, very often if you see something that's missing at first, it's just a matter of a week or so before it shows up because your counselor, in most cases, is entering data into your MySchool's account for you. And the DOE just has to upload it into the system and it takes a little bit of time for it to show up. That's usually the case.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, for example, if you don't see your course marks, if you don't see your screen group, for screen programs, something like that.

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Maurice Frumkin: don't fret, it's just a matter of timing, but again, I would usually say to go to your counselor, and even in your independent school, the one in your school that is handling the middle school admissions process.

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Maurice Frumkin: Worst case scenario, if your school… let's say you attend a continuing school, you know, maybe you're in an independent school that continues from middle school to high school, and they're not being very supportive.

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Maurice Frumkin: You can always go to a DOE Welcome Center, but you don't have to. But I mean, that's really up to you. But their job is to help you in situations like that.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Yep, great.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): one more question about, with… and then there's another question in the chat, which I'll go back to, but one of the things that I wanted to touch base is about the SWD classification.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Can you talk briefly about, sort of, within… and this is sort of very inside baseball, but if you have a student and you're trying to figure out whether or not my student might qualify for the SWD classification, or you think that your student should qualify and they don't.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): one of the things that I'm wondering if you can sort of speak to is sort of the… or to provide sort of an answer in the sense of, like, what types of support will generally qualify or not qualify a student for the SWD status? Meaning, like, they receive support at the school, but in some cases don't, from the DOE's perspective, they might not

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Andrew Barber (he/him): they might not be used as a class, like, to qualify for student for the SWD status.

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Maurice Frumkin: I'll answer it this way, Andrew. There is a much higher percentage of students that qualify for an ICT classroom that will qualify for an SWD. I'm trying to be really careful with my words, because not every student who's in an ICT classroom necessarily will qualify.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Yep.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, for… the other side of the coin is if a student has sets-related services, or anything that is sort of.

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Maurice Frumkin: less supportive than an ICT classroom, per se, then those are… those students generally will not fall into the SWDC group. When in doubt, talk to your counselor, and if you do look at your MySchool's profile and you think there's an error.

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Maurice Frumkin: Talk to your counselor.

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Maurice Frumkin: But those are just some of the reasons that tend to happen.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Yep. Another great question is just that if you're struggling, and I get this all the time, is that you're really struggling to sort of get to 12 schools, and you're… you're sort of, like, how do… what are some best practices to try to sort of evaluate that? And I'm also sort of, like.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Wondering if you can sort of also explain.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): you rank your school, second part of this question is, you rank your schools, you submit it, you get your offered choice of your sixth-ranked school, right? And what does that mean for schools 1 through 5? And what… what does the process look like

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Andrew Barber (he/him): after that April notification, moving forward. So the first question is, is that how might you try to identify, maybe using Inside Schools to identify other schools if you're struggling to get to 12? And then what happens, what's the process look like

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Andrew Barber (he/him): after notification.

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Maurice Frumkin: Yeah. And I'm not gonna lie to you and say that it's easy always getting to 12 because it it's it's it's not. A couple things come up in my mind. One is that

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Maurice Frumkin: You know.

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Maurice Frumkin: I I wanna be really clear that even if you rank something as 10th or 12th or 15th, because by the way, there's no limit.

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Maurice Frumkin: Which I forgot to even mention today.

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Maurice Frumkin: That doesn't mean that the algorithm is going to jump down to that low choice just because it's an easier program to get into.

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Maurice Frumkin: If I apply to my 15 choice.

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Maurice Frumkin: you have to be willing to consider the 15th choice, right? You don't want to just list something on your application just because my counselor's telling me I need more choices.

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Maurice Frumkin: But it should absolutely be something you're willing to consider if you don't get into your top 14. I know it sounds like a rare circumstance, and it is statistically.

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Maurice Frumkin: But you know what? I would much rather get into my 15 choice that I chose as opposed to the DOE giving me something that I'm not going to like.

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Maurice Frumkin: But I'm never going to get number 15 unless I don't get one of my top 14.

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Maurice Frumkin: If I'm struggling to come up with choices, Andrew, you mentioned Inside Schools is a great resource. Yes, talk to your counselor. Just talk to other admissions experts that can give you some other ideas.

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Maurice Frumkin: And quickly to answer your question, the second part of your question, which was about waitlists, essentially. So let's say I match to my fifth choice. What happens after that? I will be automatically waitlisted to my top four.

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Maurice Frumkin: And… Then, after that, I can…

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Maurice Frumkin: I will know my waitlist position. I will know exactly what the position is. By the way, I get new lottery numbers for every waitlist that I'm on.

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Maurice Frumkin: So, this is why sometimes I say to families, if I… if you have a… let's say you got a… you have an awful lottery number, and you're saying to yourself, I'm never going to apply to that program, apply anyway, you have nothing to lose. You never know if you're going to get a better lottery number on the waitlist.

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Maurice Frumkin: But let's say I'm automatically placed on those top four programs. And by the way, I can add myself to any other wait list if I want to.

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Maurice Frumkin: The DOE will notify. Actually, the school will notify me if

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Maurice Frumkin: I'm taken off the waitlist, and then I'll have a chance to make a decision. I can decide, I have a week to decide whether or not I want to take that waitlist offer, or if I want to keep what I have.

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Maurice Frumkin: And by the way, I can stay on as many waitlists as you want. There's no limit. Even if I get an offer from my fourth choice waitlist, I can still get an offer later on from my first choice waitlist.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Great. Last question. I know that, and I don't want to keep you, and I want to be mindful of everyone's time.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): the ranking 12 choices, or however many choices, and I think you make a great point in the sense of, like, even if you think a school… getting into a specific school that you really love is a… is… there's a high likelihood that there won't be an offer, that there's literally no downside as to putting it on your list, is that… so you're really ranking according to your true preferences. It's really important.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Let's say that you only rank 4 schools, and you're not offered, or however many schools you rank, you're not able to

439
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Andrew Barber (he/him): provide a spot.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Does the DOE just, similar to the high school process, the DOE will just sort of go out and look for a school, because they're required to provide you an option. And what is that… what does that look like? What is the… what is the… after the algorithm has been exhausted of your 12, 4, 15 choices.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): What is the algorithm's option? What does it do?

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Maurice Frumkin: So if I don't get one of my choices, if I have if I'm in a district that has if I have a zone middle school.

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Maurice Frumkin: In most cases, the DOE will give me a spot in my zone middle school.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): And if you haven't ranked it.

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Maurice Frumkin: If you haven't ranked it.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Got it, okay.

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Maurice Frumkin: By the way, if I'm in an independent school, what the DOE usually does is they don't give me anything.

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Maurice Frumkin: They'll put me on wait lists, but they're not necessarily gonna give me anything because they assume you're staying in the independent school system.

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Maurice Frumkin: So you don't want to take a chance, right? You want to have as many options as possible.

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Maurice Frumkin: Yeah, that answered.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): That's great.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Parents, as a reminder, thank you so… Maurice, thank you so much. I always… whenever we talk, I always learn something, so I really appreciate it.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): As a reminder, this deck will be… the recording will be shared with families. If you have any sort of specific follow-up questions, Maurice has provided his contact information. You can always email me. I know how to get in touch with him to ask any questions. But.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): But again, thank you so much for your time, Maurice. We're really so, so lucky to have you here. Have a great rest of the day. Take care, man.

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Maurice Frumkin: Thanks, Michael. Thanks, everyone.

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Andrew Barber (he/him): Take care. Bye-bye.