Chalkbeat Chicago

Chicago’s high school admissions window opened this week. For thousands of students and their families, so began a process marked by anxiety, questions, deadlines, and, yes, educated guesswork. 

The city’s universal application, GoCPS, is now in its third year. While still controversial, the site has streamlined a process that used to be overly cumbersome and left some students stranded without offers. But even with a single application and a match for upward of 90% of students, there are plenty of unknowns — from the odds of getting a first- or second-choice to how high a student will score on the admissions test for selective enrollment high schools...