DOE Releases List of Top-10 Most Sought-After High Schools in NYC

Deadlines have long passed for applicants seeking a slot into one of NYC's public high schools.

In the complicated high school admissions process that begins in the fall of 8th grade, students may test, audition or interview for nine screened schools and apply to up to 12 unscreened schools or programs from a directory of more than 400 schools. In fact, by now, applicants already should have received their response letters.

However, the application season serves as more than a race to the best public school, it also is a chance for the DOE to gauge its most sought-after schools, from one year to the next.

So, which high schools in the city received the most applicants this year? Predictably, all but one of the schools on the list this year were screened schools, and only two were in Brooklyn-- Edward R. Murrow Hish School and Midwood High School.

Here's the final list of where 8th-graders are trending for the fall 2011 school year*:

#1. BARUCH COLLEGE CAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL; Screened; 7,606 applications

#2. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL; Screened; 6,173 applications

#3. PACE HIGH SCHOOL; Unscreened; 5,883 applications

#4. BEACON HIGH SCHOOL; Screened; 5,705 applications

#5. EDWARD R. MURROW HIGH SCHOOL; Ed Opt; 5,612 applications

#6. MILLENNIUM HIGH SCHOOLS; Screened; 5,266 applications

#7. TOWNSEND HARRIS HIGH SCHOOL; Screened; 5,151 applications

#8. MANHATTAN / HUNTER SCIENCE HIGH SCHOOL; Screened; 4,794 applications

#9. FOREST HILLS HIGH SCHOOL; Ed Opt; 4,755 applications

#10.MIDWOOD HIGH SCHOOL; Screened; 4,681 applications

According to the DOE, fewer than half of the nearly 80,000 8th-graders who applied to up to 12 high schools last fall were matched with their first choice school, and 10 percent got no match at all.

If you are an 8th or 9th grader who is still looking for a high school, here's what you can do: Check out the schools’ profiles on Insideschools.org and take another look at their listing in the high school directory.

Call any schools you are interested in to see if it is possible to visit or tour. Also, meet with school representatives at the supplementary round high school fair on Thursday, April 22 from 6-9 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. high school complex located at 122 Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.

*Note: This list includes the number of applicants which listed the schools somewhere on their list of 12  on the application — it doesn’t indicate how many students ranked the schools first. It also does not include the specialized high schools, such as Brooklyn Tech and Stuyvesant.