Brooklyn District Shifts to 'Blind' Rankings for Middle School Admissions

School officials in District 15, which encompasses the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Park Slope and Sunset Park, are hoping to take at least some of the anxiety out of middle school admissions. Starting next year, they will join the large majority of the city's school districts and make students' order of preferences unknown to the schools selecting a new class.

The 'blind' ranking system means that families can rank schools truly in order of preference. Currently, screened schools see where they fall on a student's list of preferences which leads families to rank schools in a way they hope will gain them admission to multiple programs. Even if highly popular programs are not a student's very first choice, families feel obligated to rank them first on the application to improve their odds of acceptance.

The ranking systems not only create anxiety but they unfairly benefit the families with the most knowledge of the system, critics have said. The 'revealed' rankings unnecessarily complicated the admissions process for principals, too.

"We had a lot of families tell us that we were their number one choice," said Michael Perlberg, principal of M.S. 839, a new middle school in Kensington. "But they felt like they had to rank us third. Because that would give them the most chances at the most number of schools that they felt good about."

Perlberg, whose school received more than 800 applications for 108 spots next fall, added, “I think the simpler the process is, the more families you’ll be able to get to apply to your school." 

Anita Skop, the district superintendent, said the change has been more than a year in the making, and that principals pushed for it, knowing that schools were not necessarily culling the most diverse range of applicants.

"If the principals were only looking at the kids who ranked their school first and second — maybe third — then there were a whole group of kids who didn't have the opportunity to be looked at as closely, if at all." 

District 15 will join 24 other school districts in the city that use a blind ranking system for middle school admissions.