Audit of the Department of Education’s Administration of the High School Admission Process

Audit Report In Brief

This audit evaluated the Department of Education’s (DOE’s) administration of the high school admission process. Specifically, we focused on: whether the high school admission process in the middle schools was consistent with DOE procedures; whether middle school guidance counselors carried out their responsibilities in the process adequately; and whether DOE-reported student high school selection and placement data was valid.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

Overall, we found that DOE officials are administering the high school admission process according to DOE procedures. Deadlines are established for each stage of the process, meetings are held between DOE officials and representatives of the applications-processing vendor to discuss issues that arise, and training is provided to middle school guidance counselors on their role in the admission process, although the training could be improved. In addition, DOE regional offices hold regular meetings with guidance counselors to discuss the meeting of deadlines and any other admission issues.

The records of the guidance counselors at the middle schools we visited indicated that they met with students and their parents in the students’ final year of middle school to familiarize them with the high school directories and the application process. The guidance counselors we interviewed also attended high school fairs and open school nights and assisted students in filling out the high school applications; and they reviewed the completed application forms to ensure that students met the eligibility criteria of the high school programs they selected on the form. However, the middle school guidance counselors and principals we interviewed were unclear about how the various methods of high school student selection worked, indicating that their effectiveness in carrying out their responsibilities during the application process could be improved with additional training.

Overall, we reviewed 184 applications for the 31 sampled middle schools, encompassing 2,208 total possible high school choices, and compared the hard copy applications to the electronic data recorded in the High School Application Processing System (HSAPS). For 13 (42%) schools, all the high school choices on the 77 applications reviewed matched the corresponding information in HSAPS. For 14 (45%) schools, each had only one application (total of 14 out of 85 applications) where some high school program choices did not match the information in HSAPS. The remaining four schools (13%) each had at least two applications (total of 11 out of 22 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. In total, 2,081 (94%) of the 2,208 total possible high school choices available that were listed on the student applications matched the corresponding information in HSAPS.

DOE managers responsible for oversight of the high school admissions process stated 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. Consequently, one should not expect that the high school choices reflected on the hard copy application would match exactly with HSAPS in every case.

Although the data discrepancies we describe were not widespread and generally could be expected, we could not determine whether the discrepancies resulted from proactive changes made by guidance counselors or data entry errors, because HSAPS allowed a change simply to override and delete the prior entry without documenting the change. DOE officials 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. They have stated that steps have been taken to effect that enhancement.

We 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 the records in the ATS system. We found that 156 (85% percent) of the 184 students in the sample had enrolled in the matched school. The remaining 28 (15%) students had not enrolled in the matched high school; however, the differences were not related to the reliability of HSAPS data but rather resulted from personal circumstances, including the family’s moving, the student declining the offer, the student successfully appealing the initial decision, and the student remaining in the ninth grade.

In addition, during our visits to the 12 middle schools, we found that High School Directories were not delivered to schools on a timely basis; and there was confusion amongst guidance counselors and principals regarding the student selection methods used by the high schools.

Audit Recommendations

Based on our findings, we make three recommendations. DOE should:

•  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

Ensure that the guidance counselors and principals have a thorough understanding of the high school selection methods