APPENDIX D

Admissions Data for the Class of 2003

Program review committee staff analyzed admissions data from the 5,618 students who applied to the vocational-technical school system in the spring of 1999 for admission to the Class of 2003. Figure D-1 shows the status of the applicants systemwide at the start of the 1999-2000 school year. Statewide, three-quarters of the applicants were offered admission.

The likelihood of being accepted by a specific v-t school varied depending on the size of the school (i.e., the number of spaces available) and the number of applicants. Among individual schools, the percentage of applicants offered admission, which includes those who entered the school as well as those who canceled, ranged from 54 percent to 93 percent. Table D-1 presents detailed data for each of the 17 v-t schools.

Each applicant is given a numeric score ranging from zero to 120. These scores are the weighted sum of five elements: an interview with a guidance counselor from the school to which the student has applied, seventh and eighth grade marks, mastery test results, and absences from school. At each school, a ranked list of applicants is created using the numeric scores.¹

No minimum score is required for admission to a v-t school, but generally students are offered admission based on their place on the ranked list. (In some cases, students on a waiting list may be selected out of order to create a more diversified class.) Once an initial group of applicants is selected for admission to a particular school, all other applicants are placed on a waiting list. As each school receives cancellations, students on the waiting list are offered admission, up to the capacity limit of the school.

The scores of those applying to the Class of 2003 varied widely from school to school. The lowest scores of applicants to individual schools ranged from 12 to 37; the highest scores ranged from 88 to 116. Statewide, the median score of the applicants with scores was 70; the average score was 75. Average scores at individual schools ranged from 62 to 82.

Two-thirds of all applicants to the Class of 2003 had scores over 60, but the proportion among the individual schools ranged from 53 percent to 92 percent. The proportion of students entering the individual schools with scores above 60 ranged from 53 percent to 100 percent. Figure D-2 shows the percentage of scores above 60 for applicants and enrollees at each of the 17 v-t schools.

Systemwide, three-quarters of all of the students who applied to a vocational-technical school were eventually offered admission, and 59 percent actually entered a school. Table D-2 shows the range of scores of all applicants by final status. Table D-3 contains a detailed breakdown of the scores of applicants and those entering vocational-technical schools by individual school

¹ No scores were available for 329 applicants from 12 schools, but only 17 of them were admitted to five schools.

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