Across the country, selective public high schools, which often earn top marks in school rankings, largely fail to reflect the diversity of their communities. Concerns about the low enrollments of Black and Hispanic students in cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia have spurred officials to consider changes to the admissions processes of their most sought-after public high schools.
Proposals to increase selective high school diversity have taken various forms, including guaranteed admission for the top performers in every high school, eliminating admissions exams, and introducing geographic preferences. But these policies are controversial, and evidence of their effectiveness in increasing racial diversity is limited.
In fall 2021, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) announced a proposal to reform its admissions for selective middle and high schools starting in the 2022–23 school year. At the time of the announcement, these schools enrolled significantly higher shares of white and Asian students and lower shares of Black and Hispanic students than the district. The new admissions policy allocated seats to applicants who met schools’ admission requirements through a citywide, computerized lottery system and eliminated requirements for interviews or letters of recommendation. The SDP also implemented a zip code admissions preference for four schools, with six zip codes given preference because they had the lowest enrollment rates at these four schools. As in other districts, changes to the selective school admissions process in Philadelphia sparked widespread debate. But the question remains—how did the change in the admissions policy affect enrollment and composition at selective-admissions schools?
Key Takeaways
Analyzing data on ninth-graders enrolled in school from 2021–22 to 2022–23, findings show the following:
- Following the policy change, ninth-grade Black student enrollment in zip code preference schools increased from 28 percent to just over 33 percent, and Hispanic enrollment increased from 11 percent to 13 percent.
- There was only a 1 percent increase in Black student enrollment at centralized lottery schools. The demographic composition of ninth-graders at all other Philadelphia high schools did not change.
- At zip code preference schools, the shares of Black and Hispanic applicants increased by 8 percent and 34 percent, respectively, while the shares of Asian, white, and multiracial applicants all fell.
- At centralized lottery schools, the share of Hispanic applicants increased by 12 percent, but applicants of all other groups decreased slightly.
- There was a notable change in the composition of students who received offers from zip code preference schools. The share of offers made to Black students increased by 45 percent, and the share of offers made to Hispanic students increased by 57 percent.
- In schools with a centralized lottery only, the share of offers made to Black students also increased by 18 percent, and there was no change in the share of offers made to Hispanic students.
- For zip code preference schools, the Black or Hispanic share of admitted students who enrolled increased by 35 percent and 69 percent, respectively, while the share who were Asian or white fell by 15 percent and 28 percent.
- The changes in schools with a centralized lottery were more modest, with only a 6 percent increase in the share of Black admitted students enrolling.
Implications
In schools with a zip code preference, the policy appears to have accomplished the district’s goal of improving equity and increasing diversity. But the mechanisms for this demographic shift may have differed for Black and Hispanic students. The increase in Black enrollment at zip code preference schools appears to have been driven primarily by changes in the composition of offers and acceptances. The increase in Hispanic enrollment, however, likely reflected changes at all points in the process—a relatively large jump in applications and even more significant increases in offers and acceptances. For centralized lottery schools, the changes in offers and acceptances were more modest and mainly concentrated among Black students.
These findings suggest that the zip code preference, which changed the composition of offers, combined with the surrounding publicity, was likely an effective tool to increase the representation of Black and Hispanic students in the targeted schools. But this does not necessarily suggest that the district should expand the zip code preference policy to all selective-admissions schools. Even before the policy change, the demographic composition of centralized lottery schools closely resembled that of other high schools in the district, so there was less room, and perhaps less need, for enrollment changes in these schools. Moving forward, districts should consider targeting geographic preference policies toward schools with clear patterns of inequitable access over time rather than administering them as a blanket policy.
