Today I spoke with the DOE about the recent changes in their cell bar calculations and how it affected applicants at every school, not to those who just applied to Lab and Millennium.
Cell bar values are calculated via simulations based on historical data. They simulate entire application cycles with simulated application lists.
If we view the cell bars as cutoffs (rejected, accepted or “I don’t know”), we will see that if one factor changes (in this case, the number of available seats for Lab and Millennium), there will be a ripple effect across cutoffs for all programs in the simulations (e.g. less seats available at one program will increase the number of applicants at others). This is why people have seen changes to cell bars at programs other than Lab and Millennium.
Please remember that for the special six programs with Manhattan priority they are still using last year’s borough breakdowns in their simulations. If you believe that there will be an increase in Manhattan applicants this cycle, you may want to temper your expectations if you are a non-Manhattan resident applying to these programs and seeing 3 bars.
Last year’s true applicants from Manhattan for each program:
- Eleanor Roosevelt = 41.87% (1,568/3,749)
- Baruch = 40.28% (1,109/2,753)
- Museum = 58.75% (500/865)
- Lab = 62.31% (653/1,067)
- Millennium = 39.34% (901/2,290)
- Clinton = 65.66% (740/1,151)