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City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. issued an audit today finding that the Department of Education (DOE) has been administering its high school admission process according to its procedures.

“Overall, I am pleased to find that the Department of Education has been correctly adhering to its new high school admission process,” Thompson said. “Although there still are some minor flaws in the system, the Department has been mostly on track in implementing this new process to ensure that students get the attention and service they deserve.”

The Comptroller’s audit, which covers the 2004-2005 school year, focuses on whether the high school admission process in middle schools was consistent with DOE procedures, whether middle school counselors carried out their responsibilities in the process adequately, and whether data concerning student high school selection and placement was valid.

The Comptroller selected 31 of the City’s approximately 250 middle schools to determine the validity of the student high school selection and placement data reported by DOE. Further, principals and guidance counselors at 12 middle schools with a high percentage of students not assigned to one of their top three high school program choices were interviewed.

Each year, about 100,000 students apply to the City’s public high schools. In the past, students selected five high schools (not including their zone high school) when completing their high school applications. If not accepted by any of the selected schools, students automatically were assigned to their zoned school. As part of the Chancellor’s Children First Initiative, DOE changed that process for the 2004-2005 school year.

Starting with the 2004 entering class, students have completed those applications by ranking in order of preference up to 12 high school programs (schools may have multiple programs). Students are matched to their highest ranked program that has in turn ranked them for admission.

The high school selection and admission process begins with students receiving the “Directory of New York City Public High Schools,” which contains information on all high schools, including eligibility requirements, selection methods and program descriptions. Guidance counselors provide admission applications to students; completed applications are submitted back to guidance counselors for review and processing.

Guidance counselors enter the applications’ information on-line into the High School Application Processing System (HSAPS) or send the applications to a vendor, Spherion Atlantic Enterprises LLC-Technology Group, for processing. Spherion makes the applications available on-line to the high schools, where committees evaluate applicants and rank students for admission. After a three-round matching process, the final determination of students’ enrollment is recorded in the Department’s computer system.

The Comptroller’s audit noted that middle school guidance counselors met with students and parents to familiarize them with the application process and high school directories. Counselors also attended high school fairs and open school nights, assisted students in filling out the applications, and reviewed forms to ensure that students met eligibility criteria of selected programs.

Among the other findings:

• A comparison of hard copy applications versus electronic data for 31 sampled middle schools found that 2,081 (94%) of the total possible high school choices available and listed on the student applications matched the corresponding information in HSAPS.

• For 13 (42%) of the 31 sampled middle schools, all high school program choices on the applications matched the corresponding information in HSAPS. For 14 (45%) of the sampled schools, only one of the schools’ applications had some program choices that did not match the information in HSAPS. The remaining 4 schools (13%) each had at least two applications, for a total of 11 applications, that did not fully match the available choices listed in HSAPS. Four of these 11 applications had only one high school program choice that did not match.

Although the data discrepancies were not widespread and generally could be expected, auditors could not determine whether the discrepancies resulted from proactive changes made by guidance counselors or data entry errors, because HSAPS allows changes to data in its system to override and delete the prior entry without documenting the change. DOE noted that HSAPS was designed to allow guidance counselors the flexibility of entering changes directly in the electronic system as applications are reviewed with students and parents. However, officials also stated that they recognize the advantages to be gained from modifying HSAPS so that all data that is entered in HSAPS is maintained in the system, even if certain information is later changed. Officials stated that steps have been taken to effect that enhancement.

• Auditors noted during visits to 12 middle schools that High School Directories were not delivered to schools on a timely basis, and that there was confusion among counselors and principals regarding the student selection methods used by high schools.

• Auditors also tested whether the high school indicated as the match in HSAPS was the high school in which the student was actually enrolled for the 2005-2006 school year based on records in the Automate the Schools (ATS) computer system. The analysis showed that 156 of the 184 students in the sample had enrolled in the matched school. The remaining 28 students were not enrolled in the matched high school, which DOE noted often pointed not to a glitch in the data but resulted from personal circumstances, including the family’s moving, the student declining an offer, the student appealing a decision or students remaining in the ninth grade.

The Comptroller made three recommendations, asking DOE to: require that documentation be kept of any changes made to HSAPS computer data after the student application data is initially entered; ensure that the High School Directories are delivered on a timely basis; and, ensure that guidance counselors and principals have a thorough understanding of the high school selection methods.

In its response, DOE officials agreed with the audit’s findings and recommendations, stating that “DOE has already made the suggested improvements.”

 To view the audit, visit the Comptroller’s web site: www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

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