My FOIL request for LaGuardia’s seat and applicant data was finally fulfilled (I submitted it over a year ago!).
The numbers I got back from this FOIL request are quite different from the ones shown in MySchools. Let’s take a look at the MySchools numbers for the 2024-25 application cycle:
(M80J) Fine Arts: 279 seats, 2928 applicants
(M80K) Dance: 85 seats, 1585 applicants
(M80L) Instrumental Music: 217 seats, 1296 applicants
(M80M) Vocal Music: 201 seats, 1706 applicants
(M80N) Drama: 87 seats, 1852 applicants
(M80P) Technical Theatre: 66 seats, 954 applicants
…compare this to my FOIL results:
(M80J) Fine Arts: 180 seats, 1605 applicants
(M80K) Dance: 51 seats, 592 applicants
(M80L) Instrumental Music: 101 seats, 830 applicants
(M80M) Vocal Music: 157 seats, 924 applicants
(M80N) Drama: 88 seats, 821 applicants
(M80P) Technical Theatre: 23 seats, 178 applicants
Why are these numbers so different? Which one should we believe? I’m tempted to think that the results of my FOIL request are the correct ones since the number of seats add up to 600 while the MySchool seat total is 935. LaGuardia certainly didn’t accept 935 students for the 2025-26 school year. But if that’s correct, where are the numbers from MySchools coming from? Does the word “seats” in the FOIL request actually mean acceptances? Why are the number of applicants wildly different? I’ll have to contact the DOE and have them explain these differences.