After the PreACT 9: What Are the Next Steps?
Today, Wednesday, October 7th, CPS and charter school eighth graders took the PreACT 9 Secure, which this year replaces the old CPS HSAT as the entrance exam for Chicago's 11 selective enrollment high schools and public AP/IB programs. Non-CPS students will test on the weekends of October 17–18 and 24–25. If you are wondering what the next steps for the CPS selective enrollment high school application and admissions process look like for this year, learn more below!
Although all CPS students took the PreACT 9 today in school, taking the test does not mean that your student’s application and test scores have automatically been submitted to CPS high schools. To make sure your application is final, please visit go.cps.edu. There, students can rank up to 6 Selective Enrollment programs and up to 20 Choice programs. Rank them in your true order of preference, use all six slots if your child would be happy at more schools, and be sure to include any school you might later pursue through Principal Discretion. Note that applications for CPS high selective enrollment high schools and Choice programs close on Friday, November 13th at 5pm!
After all students have completed the PreACT 9 and submitted their applications, CPS will begin the process of determining admissions. Test results and 7th-grade grades will each count for half of a student’s admissions score. The PreACT composite score (on a 1–32 scale) is multiplied by 10, and the seventh-grade GPA in core subjects (math, English, science and social studies) is multiplied by 80, for a total of 640 points. Some schools add a 35-point bonus for students who live nearby. The top 30% of seats at each school go to the highest scorers citywide, and the rest are split evenly among four socioeconomic tiers based on home address. Because this is the PreACT's first year in CPS admissions, there are no known cutoff scores.
Scores and offers will arrive together on Friday, February 12th, 2027, in each student’s GoCPS account, a month earlier than last year's March release. Each student can receive, at the most, one Selective Enrollment offer and one Choice offer. Families then have a few weeks to accept or decline their offers. Though CPS hasn't announced the deadline for student decisions yet, it has historically fallen in mid-March. That said, as the announcement date of scores and offers have been moved up, the decision date may possibly be moved up as well. Once students have made their decisions, rolling waitlists will follow, with short response and decision windows. Note that once your child accepts a selective enrollment offer, they can't receive a different SEHS offer in a later round.
The exception is Principal Discretion, which lets each selective enrollment high school principal fill a small number of seats, historically up to about 5%, based on a holistic review of an essay, recommendations, and supporting documents. Students can apply to just one school this way. It must be a school they ranked on their application, and they can apply even after accepting another offer. The window opens in the spring after results and stays open about two weeks; in 2023 it ran March 29 to April 14, with decisions on April 28. If you think you'll go this route, it’s best to start lining up recommendation writers early.
If your student does not attend a CPS school, there is still time to prepare your student for the exam, helping them develop the knowledge, skills, and strategies needed to succeed. As a licensed participant in the NTPA ACT Affiliate Tutor Program, we had been aware of the change from the CPS HSAT to the PreACT 9, and our team had already begun creating new PreACT 9 Secure curriculum. As such, students enrolled or looking to enroll in any courses or one-day workshops, or students beginning individual tutoring, can be assured that the content and test-taking strategies they are being taught will reflect the content seen on the new exam. While all of our courses have begun, you can still sign up for our self-paced course (sign up here), self-paced Palooza workshop (sign up here), or individual tutoring sessions (sign up here), which all include the new PreACT 9 Secure content and test-taking strategies instead of the old CPS HSAT curriculum. Sign up now to help your student prepare!