It’s time to apply to Milwaukee public high schools. Here’s how the competition works.

Over the next month, thousands of Milwaukee eighth graders will apply to their top-choice public high schools in the city. 

Some will have to compete for seats in schools with the highest demand. Others will find there’s plenty of room for them at their chosen schools, and some will just be placed at the closest available school to their home.   

At a Milwaukee Public Schools enrollment fair Sept. 23, eighth grader Asinah Gardner was wearing her volleyball jersey representing her current school, Eastbrook Academy, as she had a game later that day. She walked around the gym at North Division, reading trifold displays about 24 different high schools.

Asinah is interested in transferring from her private school to MPS because she'd like a bigger school and a diverse environment, and she'd like to keep playing volleyball. She's interested in Rufus King and Golda Meir — both of which will require competing with other students for coveted seats.

Outside, eighth grader Axel Mejia said he left the enrollment fair feeling excited and nervous for high school. He and his parents are weighing a few options, looking at academic performance and proximity to their home, but Axel knows it'll mean meeting a different group of students and navigating a bigger school.

"We're going to have to run to this class and the next class halfway across the school, so I'm definitely nervous about being late and the time schedules," he said.

Asinah, Axel and over 5,000 other students will all be part of a sorting process over the next several months that will determine their high school experiences. The results will be based on a range of factors like where they live, how well they did in school in seventh grade, their performance on an impromptu essay and their own top choices of schools.

Here’s how the process works. 

How do students get placed at a MPS high school? 

Some MPS high schools have enough space to accept all students who want to attend. Those students are simply enrolled in their top-choice schools that they indicate on their application forms, without needing to meet certain criteria or compete.

Five competitive MPS high schools regularly use admission criteria to determine which students to accept: Rufus King IB High School, Golda Meir High School, Milwaukee High School of the Arts, Ronald Wilson Reagan IB High School and Riverside University High School. 

Other MPS high schools use admission criteria if they receive more applicants than they have the capacity to accept. 

Some MPS students, if they don't fill out an application form to indicate their preferences, are placed at the schools nearest to their homes that have open spots.

What are the admission criteria for competitive MPS high schools? 

When an MPS high school can’t admit everyone who applies, it uses a ranking system to determine who gets in. 

Each student gets a score, according to MPS admission criteria. Students can get a maximum of 12 points based on: 

• seventh-grade attendance
• seventh-grade report card
• seventh-grade standardized test scores 
• impromptu essay completed in eighth grade.

When determining who to accept, a school will first look at all students who marked it as their first choice on their applications. If the school doesn’t have room for all students who picked it as their top choice, the school will accept the highest scoring students from that group. 

If a school has room for more students than the number of students who marked it as their top choice, it will look at those who marked it as their second choice and didn’t get into their first choice. It will accept the highest-scoring students of that group until it’s full. If there’s still more room, it will consider students who marked it as their third choice. 

Why is it important to be cautious about choosing which school to make your top choice? 

Because MPS schools prioritize accepting students who marked them as their first choice, sometimes lower-scoring students will be accepted to a school ahead of higher-scoring students who marked the school as their second or third choice. 

That has been a point of frustration for students who don’t score high enough to get into their top choice, and then don’t get into their second choice school, even if their scores are high enough, because the school already filled up on students who marked it as their top choice. 

MPS administrators said they took steps this year to prevent that situation. They sent letters to families of eighth graders to inform them of their scores (based on seventh grade performance), along with the scores that were admitted to each competitive high school last year. That way, families can make a more-informed top choice. 

When and how do students apply for MPS high schools? 

MPS students start the high school enrollment process in eighth grade. Eighth graders can submit their applications from Sept. 23 through Oct. 31 each year. Students can tour prospective high schools during open houses running Sept. 26 through Oct. 12.

Students who miss this period will have another chance to enroll in February and thereafter, but those students won’t have the chance to compete for high schools that filled up in the first enrollment period. 

Students only need to complete one application, which can be found on the MPS website. They can select up to five high schools they're interested in attending, in order of their preference.  

If students attended a non-MPS school for seventh grade, they will need to upload their standardized test scores, report cards and attendance reports. If they attended a MPS school for seventh grade, the district will already have that information. 

Separately, eighth graders will also need to complete an impromptu essay. If they are already attending a MPS school, they will be prompted to do the essay at school between Oct. 2 and 27. Other students will receive directions for completing the essay within a week of submitting their application. The essay involves reading a short text and responding to a question about it, with up to two hours to complete it.

What MPS high schools are the most competitive? 

According to a presentation by administrators in May about the enrollment process for this school year, the following high schools accepted students with the following criteria and admission scores:

• Reagan: accepted students who selected it as their top choice and had score of 10 or higher (or 9 if a sibling was already attending the school)
• Golda Meir: accepted only students who selected it as their top choice and had score of 8 or higher (or lower-scoring students who were already attending eigth grade at the school)
• King: accepted only students who selected it as their top choice and had score of 5 or higher
• Audubon Technology & Communication: accepted only students who selected it as their top choice and had score of 4 or higher
• High School of the Arts: accepted only students who selected it as their top choice, with no cutoff score
• MacDowell Montessori: accepted only students who selected it as their top choice, with no cutoff score
• Riverside: accepted students who chose it first, second and third, with no cutoff score

The criteria can change each year, depending on how many students apply to each school and what their scores are.

Reagan was by far the most competitive MPS high school going into this school year, with over 1,000 applicants marking it as their top choice, and a freshman class last year of about 350 students.

Golda Meir was also highly competitive, with 443 students picking it first, and a freshman class last year of about 160 students. At King, 495 students picked it first, with a freshman class last year of about 375.

What MPS high schools have special programs? 

MPS high schools have a range of specialties, including arts, engineering, manufacturing, automotive industry, nursing, agriculture, culinary arts, language immersion and college preparation. You can search for schools based on their offerings at mps.milwaukee.k12.wi.us/en/Schools/Find-a-School.htm.

Four schools offer International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, which allow students to earn college credits that may be recognized internationally: King, MacDowell Montessori, Pulaski and Reagan.

How does MPS transportation work?

MPS high school students are provided school buses if they live between 2 and 7 miles from their assigned school, under school board policy. Students who live more than 7 miles from their assigned school can get passes for public transportation. Charter schools set their own transportation rules.

What about private schools and charter schools? 

Families interested in private schools and most charter schools will go through different application processes.

Last year, over 2,000 ninth graders enrolled in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, a tax-funded program that allows lower-income families to attend private schools for free. The application period for that program opens in February.

Most charter schools have a separate application process. On the MPS application, only two charter schools are listed as options: Alliance High School and GreenTree Preparatory Academy. For information on how to apply to other charter schools, visit those schools' individual websites.

More:Here's what charter schools are and how they work in Wisconsin

A list of all charter schools can be found on the state Department of Public Instruction website. The Wisconsin Resource Center for Charter Schools also maintains a directory of charter schools and their specialties.

Contact Rory Linnane at rory.linnane@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @RoryLinnane.