PATHWAYS TO AN ELITE EDUCATION: APPLICATION, ADMISSION, AND MATRICULATION TO NEW YORK CITY’S SPECIALIZED HIGH SCHOOLS Sean Patrick Corcoran Abstract (corresponding author) New York City’s public specialized high schools have a long Steinhardt School of Culture, history of offering a rigorous, college preparatory education Education, and Human to the city’s most academically talented students. Though im- Development mensely popular and highly selective, their policy of admitting New York University students using a single entrance exam has raised questions about New York, NY 10003 diversity and equity in access. In this paper, we provide a de- scriptive analysis of the “pipeline” from middle school to ma-
[email protected] triculation at a specialized high school, identifying group-level differences in application, admission, and enrollment. In doing E. Christine Baker-Smith so, we highlight potential points of intervention to improve ac- Steinhardt School of Culture, cess for underrepresented groups. Controlling for other measures Education, and Human of prior achievement, we find black, Hispanic, low-income, and Development female students are significantly less likely to qualify for admis- New York University sion to a specialized high school. Differences in application and New York, NY 10003 matriculation rates also affect the diversity in these schools, and christine.baker-smith@nyu we find evidence of middle school “effects” on both application .edu and admission. Simulated policies that offer admissions using alternative measures, such as state test scores and grades, sug- gest many more girls, Hispanics, and white students would be admitted under these alternatives. They would not, however, ap- preciably increase the share of offers given to black or low-income students.