Philadelphia’s special-admissions process has updated again. Here are the changes for 2024-25 applications.

Philadelphia is again changing the way it admits students to its criteria-based schools — loosening standards for grades and attendance at select magnet schools and considering students’ best standardized test scores over two years.

The changes come after a recent outside analysis of the Philadelphia School District’s admissions policies recommended that students at magnets that contain middle as well as high school grades gain automatic admission to the high schools as long as they continue to meet academic standards. The district granted that change to start with applications for the 2024-25 school year, and promised more changes to come.

Among the shifts announced Thursday include developing a process for students who meet criteria but are waitlisted for all their schools of choice. Such students will receive an offer for placement at one of the other 38 criteria-based or citywide schools where seats are available.

» READ MORE: Responding to complaints, Philly schools are changing the special-admissions process for the 2024-25 school year

Students are scheduled to report to district schools Tuesday for the start of the 2023-24 school year; the school selection window for the 2024-25 year will open Sept. 15 and close Oct. 27, allowing students in prekindergarten through 11th grade to apply to schools outside of their neighborhood with available space.

The changes to the policy come after widespread discontent over a special-admissions policy overhaul initiated in 2021 and tweaked last year. Those changes, designed to bring equity to a system where the city’s top magnets generally did not reflect the city’s or school system’s demographics — disadvantaging Black and Latino students — resulted in a federal lawsuit that is still pending.

What will not change is the district’s centralized lottery, which had removed the ability of principals to have final say over their student body. And also remaining in place is preference at some schools, including Masterman and Central, for students who come from certain underrepresented zip codes.

The shifts announced Thursday include:

Hundreds of seats were left open in a number of special-admissions schools after the 2022-23 school year selection process concluded — even with the district reopening the process and allowing qualified students who got into none of their schools of choice to pick new schools. Critics said that was due in part to the effects of the pandemic, the schools’ unbendable standards, and the inability of schools to do what they had done in the past — allow in students who were close to meeting academic requirements and who demonstrated they would be a good fit for the school.

For the coming year, some schools have adjusted their academic targets, and all schools will consider a larger test-score picture.

Instead of students being judged on their math and English language test scores solely from seventh grade for high schools and fourth grade only for middle schools, this year, students’ best scores across two years (seventh and sixth, and fourth and third) on English and math state exams will be considered. An option for a 50th percentile cutoff point on ELA or math, but not both, has also been added.

Some schools that had last year required As and Bs only will now let students with one or two Cs be considered eligible to apply. Though Masterman, Central, Academy at Palumbo, George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science, Parkway Center City Middle College, and Northeast High’s aerospace magnet and pre-International Baccalaureate still require all As and Bs.

A complete list of each special-admissions school’s requirements can be found here.

Fifteen schools lowered their attendance requirements. They now require 90% attendance, equal to 18 or fewer unexcused absences. They had required 95% attendance — nine or fewer unexcused absences.

The LeGare consent decree requires the district to make accommodations for students with diverse learning needs, including special education and English language learning services. This year, the district will beef up its “individualized review process” for applicants to magnet schools.

One key problem with the special-admissions process over the past two years was the district’s haphazard communication. Families found the district’s messaging opaque and confusing.

Officials pledged “clear and relevant information earlier and more often, and to increase families’ and students’ understanding of the process,” and said district staff would also receive more training on the process to better assist students and families.

The district will host multiple student and family engagement meetings around school selection in September and October, as well as new “Application Assistance Labs” at schools across the city, officials said.

As previously announced, students who attend middle grades programs at Carver, Girard Academic Music Program, Hill-Freedman World Academy, Masterman, and Science Leadership Academy at Beeber will receive automatic admission to those schools’ high schools if they continue to meet academic standards.

For the 2024-25 school year, the district hopes to offer lottery, ranking, and waitlist optimization updates “in order to improve the efficiency of matches and ultimately increase offers per students.”