Well, things did not go so well for Junior tonight in the UIC College Prep admissions lottery. He got pulled out of the golden raffle bin at number 96 of 198. Another 230 kids got pulled ahead of the wait list and won admission on the spot. Ouch.
To save you doing the math, that meant there were 428 applicants for 230 spaces, or almost two kids for every slot.
Goint there, it was snowing hard and even under long johns my legs stung from the cold while walking over to the Behavioral Sciences building from the Ashland bus. I was glad Junior and his mom had not come. She just got off bed rest-she didn't need to be out in that weather.
About 200 people showed up--on a rough head count, 80 percent were Latino, 20 percent African American. I saw two white families in the crowd and one other white lady by herself, like me. She picked up a letter for a winning student with a Latino name, so I wondered whether she was his mother or just another do-gooder like yours truly.
They showed some stats on a projector before the lottery started. Significantly more girls than boys applied, though I no longer remember the exact numbers.
If I were a parent, I could not have stood the agony of waiting to see whether my kid got picked, nor the disappointment when he didn't. This is a very strong impetus to get involved with the plans for a new neighborhood high school, I'll tell you.
There are two possibilities still on the table. First, it looked like many applicants, and many of those chosen, were from magnets and gifted centers, so this may have been their insurance policy in case they didn't get into a selective enrollment school. So some number of those admitted probably won't take the offer, which means some wait-list kids will get in. However, I doubt that will get us to number 96.
More encouraging is Noble Network's promise that the kids on the UIC College Prep wait list will be invited to take open slots at other Noble Network Schools. They have a couple of schools that don't have a full 9-12 grade complement yet, and I'm not sure if they are opening any other schools besides UIC. The things is, this still may not help Junior that much, because his mom is really worried that he will struggle to manage a complicated commute, and most of the other buildings I know of will be further away and more trouble to get to.
He still has one more chance--the Perspectives Math & Science Academy is Friday, and he's in that one. Someone else on the block got her application to me but too late for the lottery--she'll go straight to the waiting list.
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2 comments:
My daughter and I both weathered the snow and made it to the lottery on time. Unfortunately, she was not selected in the fortunate 230 students. She ended up being 102 on the wait list. She and i were very disappointed. We attended one of the very first open houses and at that time I spoke with the principle and he assurred me that he would take all of the applying students. He said that not many people were applying and that even if they did get the amount they did get the full amount of applicants, he would still take them all. Well tonight was another story. I could not contain myself and I cried with dissapointment I know that Yessie was holding back the tears also. All the kids that appied from here graduating class did not want to attend UIC and they all got called. My daughter says she will still attend noble high school if it is offered. I still have to check the distance from my home. What a let down, especially after being assured that there was enough room for every student interested. Shame on you Mr O. Seacat.
I feel your pain. I got pretty much the same speech from Mr. Sicat with less than a week before the application deadline. They must have been inundated the last day--which makes sense to me, since another parent and child were there when I dropped my neighbors' application off, during the snow that Friday (Feb. 1 if I remember right.)
To be nice about it, I don't think they realized how much interest it would generate, nor that people usually make deadlines at the very last minute.
I have friends whose son graduated from the original Noble, and there is another family on the block with two kids at one of their newer ones. I think they are all good schools for the students who can get in. Let's hope their guess about taking from the wait list to fill seats is correct.
I suspect a chunk of those admitted will ultimately choose other schools, but I'm very worried that will only get kids up to about 50 on the wait list in. I wish you and your daughter much luck with this.
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