Big Changes to CPS High School Admissions: What Parents Need to Know for 2027-28
If you're a Chicago parent whose child is applying to CPS high schools for the 2027-28 school year, some important changes have been made to the admissions process. Chicago Public Schools just released brand new information clarifying PreACT 9 scoring, the new point system, and tiebreakers. Below, Test Prep Chicago breaks down these changes, and how they may impact your student.
The New Point Scale
CPS has replaced its old 900-point system with a new 640-point system: 320 points from the PreACT 9 and 320 points from 7th-grade grades in English, science, math, and social studies. While the total amount of points has changed, the system's overall structure remains the same: 50% of a student's point total comes from the PreACT 9 and 50% comes from grades
PreACT 9 Scoring
The PreACT 9 Secure produces a composite score from 1 to 32, which CPS multiplies by 10 for up to 320 points. A 28 composite earns 280 points; a perfect 32 earns the full 320. Because CPS hasn't used this test before, families won't have prior years' score distributions, cutoff scores, or data to contextualize each student's performance, which is worth keeping in mind as results come in.
Grade Point Average Scoring
The remaining 320 points come from final 7th-grade grade (GPA) in core subjects. CPS multiplies the composite GPA by 80 to convert it into points, for a maximum of 320. A student with a 4.0 GPA earns the maximum, while a 3.0 GPA translates to 240 points.
Final Score Calculation
Once both scores are calculated, they're simply added together to produce a total score out of 640 points. If your student wants to estimate their own score at home, this formula makes it easy to plug in real numbers and see where they stand. While this can be helpful, remember that since this is a new system, there's no prior-year data yet to compare test scores against.
Additional Points
Certain programs award an additional 35 points to students who live within a school's designated geographic boundary, bringing the maximum possible score for those programs up to 675 points. Right now, this bonus applies to all IB programs and to Hubbard High School's University Scholars program. If you're applying to one of these programs and live nearby, that geographic bonus can make a real difference, so it's worth double-checking your address eligibility before applications close.
Tiebreakers
With thousands of students competing for a limited number of seats, ties are common, and CPS has a clear system for breaking them that works differently depending on the type of school. Choice program, including IB, Military, Fine & Performing Arts, and CTE programs, use a computerized lottery. Selective enrollment schools compare PreACT 9 Math scores first, then Reading scores, and then fall back to a random lottery if still tied — meaning a slightly higher math score can be the deciding factor.
What This Means for Your Student
Because this rubric and exam are both new, there will be a learning curve this cycle for everyone: families, students, and even school staff alike. Test Prep Chicago anticipated this change and prepared: we've already built a full PreACT 9 Secure curriculum, so students in our courses, Palooza workshops, and individual tutoring are training on content and strategies that match the actual exam. All of our scheduled courses (sign up here) and one-day Palooza workshops (sign up here) will continue to run as planned, as will our individual tutoring sessions (sign up here), featuring 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!
If you have questions about how the transitions outlined in this blog will affect your student's application, you can always reach out to our team at 312-848-1266 or info@testprepchicago.com for more information. Check out our detailed overview page for more here!