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SEHS Admissions Process
The admissions process for CPS Selective Enrollment High Schools can be overwhelming. Lucky for you, we have years of experience with hundreds of families, and we can help you, too!
The Points System
CPS uses a 900-point system for Selective Enrollment High School admissions, based on three factors:
- 300 points for seventh grade grades: CPS considers only reading, math, science, and social studies grades when calculating these points. Students can earn a maximum of 75 points for each grade.
- 300 points for NWEA MAP scores: CPS students take the MAP at school in May of seventh grade, whereas students attending private schools take the MAP on a weekend in the fall of eighth grade. Students must have a minimum percentile of 24 in both math and reading to be eligible to take the SEHS exam.
- 300 points for the SEHS exam: The SEHS exam is taken in eighth grade, typically some time in the late fall or early winter.
You can learn more about the score breakdown in this chart. We recommend that you use CPS's point calculation tool to get an exact point total for your child.
Score Cutoffs
Thirty percent of seats are filled based on these scores alone. The other 70% are filled based on a combination of scores and rank within socio-economic tier groups. To learn more about the admissions process, check out CPS's Office of Access and Enrollment Website.
Score cutoffs are quite high for the most competitive schools, particularly for students who live in tier three or four. You can see the cutoff scores for the 2017-18 school year here.
Tiebreaker
If students have the same total number of points and there is only one seat available, CPS ranks students based on their performance on the SEHS test and then on the individual SEHS test section scores. They first consider the total SEHS score, then the math, reading, vocabulary, and language arts scores (in that order).
Principal Discretion
If your child is not accepted into their top-choice selective enrollment school, they can choose to apply for a seat via Principal Discretion. Here's how that works: the principal of each selective enrollment high school has the opportunity to choose a handful of students to enroll in their school. Interested students must complete an extensive application process (typically in February) and the students selected will be notified in March. Selection for Principal Discretion is very competitive, but is worth trying if your child has their heart set on a particular school!
Choosing Schools
When your child applies to Selective Enrollment High Schools, they will be asked to rank their school choices. CPS will attempt to place them in their top-choice school. If they do not qualify for that school, CPS will see if they qualify for their second choice school and so on. This means that your child should rank their top choice school first, even if it's a long shot. If they don't qualify for that school, CPS will simply move on to the next school on the list.
Getting Started with Tutoring
All students begin by taking a diagnostic pre-test. After the pre-test is complete, we'll put together a tutoring plan outlining how much tutoring we recommend, goal scores, and which test dates we recommend preparing for. The best part? The pre-test, test analysis, and plan are free!
Contact us today to get a free pre-test or sign up for one of our proctored tests!