Despite Student Protests, Hunter Keeps Contested Entrance Exam

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Hunter College High School will hold its entrance exam again this year, administrators said this week, rebuffing months of advocacy by students, faculty and public officials who had called on the elite public school to scrap it.

The decision to hold the exam again on June 23 for this fall's incoming class was announced publicly on Monday. It came after administrators had remained silent for months about the future of the exam, puzzling some in the school community.

Pressure had mounted on Hunter to reform its admissions practices amid what students have called a "diversity crisis." The selective school, which is run by the City University of New York, was just 6.2 percent Latino and 2.4 percent Black last year — an outlier in a district that is roughly two-thirds Black and Latino.

Much of the blame for Hunter's lack of diversity has been placed on the entrance exam, which is typically administered each January to high-performing sixth-graders across the city. It was suspended indefinitely during the pandemic last year, providing a window of opportunity for advocates seeking to persuade the school to change or abolish it.

In September, students, parents and alumni demonstrated outside administrators' offices, saying that the exam disadvantaged low-income minority students who are unable to afford test preparation classes.

Their campaign was boosted in December by the New York Times editorial board, and again the following month in a letter signed by 37 elected officials across the city, who urged Hunter leaders not to administer the exam this year.

This week's announcement was met with disappointment from many of those who had pushed for change, including Mia Montrose, a leader of the student group HCHS4Diversity.

"[A] no-test admissions process for 2021 would be anything but radical," Montrose said. "There’s no doubt that HCHS’s homogeneity will continue to harm students’ experiences at the school."

"Not inevitable"

In a statement, Lisa Siegmann, director of the Hunter College Campus Schools, said Hunter is "actively involved in a rigorous process to consider how to create an admissions policy" that would improve diversity in the student body.

President Jennifer Raab has convened a task force composed of students, alumni, faculty, parents and others, who are meeting with an educational equity consultant, Siegmann added.

"Because this work is ongoing, HCHS will continue to use its admission test for this fall's new seventh grade class," Siegmann said, adding that this year's exam will have a waived application fee and be offered in multiple locations.

Some at Hunter have fiercely defended the exam, saying it helps preserve the school's elite status. Others have described it as an equity tool, since it gives gifted kids around the city an opportunity to secure a spot.

"This test provided my child with the opportunity to have dreams and aspirations," said Shawnette Spence-Johnstone, who was living in public housing when her son, Jayden, was offered the exam as a sixth-grader. He is now a high school freshman at Hunter.

Critics have noted that Hunter's student body was not always so homogenous: in 1995, the incoming seventh-grade class was 12 percent Black and six percent Latino, the New York Times reported in 2010.

"The decline of the diversity of the student body ... was not inevitable," said Deepak Bhargava, a 1986 Hunter graduate who is now a professor at CUNY, during September's protest. "It was the choices this administration made about how they were going to pursue admissions."

Students pushing to reform the exam, who wanted it suspended for another year, said Monday they would continue their efforts.

"While we’re deeply disappointed with the route President Raab has taken for the 2021 process, we know that there is widespread support for reform in our community," freshman Cristina Mercado said in a statement. "The fight does not end here."

Previous coverage:

• Pols Pressure Hunter High School To Scrap Test, Improve Diversity
• Hunter Students Lament School's Growing 'Diversity Crisis'