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AI-Powered School Admissions Matching for NYC Families

What it is for

Eligibility & Public Benefits
  • MySchools manages centralized admissions for all NYC public school programs: 3-K, pre-K, Gifted & Talented, middle school, and high school. The algorithm determines which school each student is matched to based on their submitted preferences and school-specific criteria.
Education & Learning
  • The system supports student admission and school placement across all centralized NYC public school enrollment programs, acting as the primary algorithmic engine for matching applicants to educational institutions.
Run by
NYC Public Schools (NYCPS)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.
Shared with
Accountable organization, Me

What it is for

Eligibility & Public BenefitsEducation & Learning

This system uses the Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm to match New York City students to public schools across all centralized admissions processes, including 3-K, pre-K, Gifted & Talented, middle school, and high school. It takes student biographical, academic, and school records as input and produces a school placement for each applicant. The algorithm is monitored by staff and runs daily during admissions periods — families should know that the matching outcome is generated automatically based on their submitted preferences and school criteria.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Sensitive personal information
Identifiable data
  • Student biographical information including home address, poverty status, and home language. This data directly identifies individual students and is used as input to the matching algorithm.
Sensitive personal information
Identifiable data
  • Student academic information (e.g., course grades, state test scores) and student school records (e.g., sending school). These records carry significant social and institutional risk and are used to determine admissions eligibility and matching priority.

Processing

Optimization
  • The Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm iteratively matches students to schools by simulating proposals and tentative acceptances until a stable assignment is reached. This is a classical combinatorial optimization technique used internationally for resource allocation matching problems.

What it does

Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human executes
  • The Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm scores and ranks student-school pairings iteratively, producing a ranked match outcome for each applicant. The process is monitored by staff, who review the results before they are acted upon.

Outputs

A decision about you
Identifiable data
  • The algorithm outputs a school match for each student — a binding placement decision that determines which public school the student is assigned to attend. This outcome is tied to the specific individual applicant.

Run by

NYC Public Schools (NYCPS)
  • NYC Public Schools (NYCPS), through its Division of Instructional and Information Technology (DIIT), deploys and operates the MySchools matching system for all centralized school admissions in New York City. The team at DIIT is actively taking over maintenance and development of the tool from the vendor.

NYC Automated Decision Systems — MySchools Match

Built by

Blenderbox
  • Blenderbox is a professional services agency contracted for five years to design the MySchools application and implement its algorithmic matching functionality. The work is designed to transition in-house to DIIT by the end of the contract.

NYC Automated Decision Systems — MySchools Match

Kept for

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • Match output data and input records are available to NYC Public Schools (NYCPS) through the administrative portal, used for managing centralized admissions processes.
Available to me
  • Individual families can view their child's school match result through the family-facing MySchools portal. Each family has access only to their own child's information.

Stored

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyFamilies can learn about how the MySchools matching algorithm works through the NYC Public Schools enrollment support website at https://enrollmentsupport.schools.nyc. The Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm is publicly documented and widely described in academic and public literature.
  • Right to Be Informed of AI UseFamilies interacting with the MySchools portal are informed that their school preferences will be processed through an automated matching algorithm. Information about the admissions process, including the role of the algorithm, is available through the NYC Public Schools enrollment support website.
  • Right to ContestFamilies who believe their child's school match is incorrect or unfair may contact NYC Public Schools through the enrollment support portal at https://enrollmentsupport.schools.nyc. The register does not describe a formal appeals process for algorithmic match outcomes, but NYCPS staff monitor the system and may assist families with concerns.

Risks and safeguards

  • Reputational harmStudents may receive school placements that do not reflect their stated preferences or that are perceived as unfair due to opaque criteria (lottery numbers, academic thresholds). The algorithm's outputs are monitored by NYCPS staff. The Gale-Shapley algorithm is a well-established, publicly documented method used internationally, which provides some transparency about the matching logic. Families can view their child's match outcome through the family-facing MySchools portal.
  • Societal & cultural harmThe use of poverty status, home language, and academic records as matching inputs may embed or perpetuate socioeconomic and cultural inequities in school placements across NYC.Safeguard: The algorithm is monitored daily by NYCPS staff. The system has been in use since 2018 and uses an internationally recognized algorithm. The register does not describe a formal bias or equity audit process, which is a gap in disclosed mitigation.