Chicago public schools: a parent’s guide

This guide is for Chicago parents trying to make sense of Chicago Public Schools, whether your child is starting kindergarten next fall, finishing seventh grade with an eye on a selective high school, or new to the city. It covers how the district is organized, how neighborhood boundaries work, what selective enrollment testing involves, how magnet, charter and other choice programs fill their seats, and the dates that matter in the application cycle now under way.

The short version: every Chicago address comes with a guaranteed neighborhood school, and everything else runs through one online application called GoCPS. The window for the 2027-28 school year is open right now and closes in mid-November.

How CPS works

CPS is big. The district’s stats and facts page lists 304,687 students at the start of the 2026-27 school year and 626 schools. Of those, 520 are district-run (428 elementary and 92 high schools), 99 are charters, and the rest are contract schools, SAFE schools and eight options programs for students who have left traditional school. About 69% of students are low income, 26% are English learners and 18% have an IEP.

Most CPS elementary schools run kindergarten through eighth grade, so there is usually no separate middle school step. The big transitions are kindergarten, seventh grade (for academic centers) and ninth grade.

Schools fall into three buckets that GoCPS uses everywhere:

• Neighborhood programs: the school assigned to your address. No application.
• Choice programs: magnets, open enrollment, dual language, IB, career and technical programs and more. Seats go by lottery or points.
• Selective enrollment programs: test-in schools where seats go by points.

The Chicago Board of Education sets policy. Per the board’s site, regular board meetings are on the fourth Thursday of the month, and the next one is October 22, 2026. Public speakers register in advance.

Neighborhood schools and boundaries

Every Chicago address is assigned a neighborhood elementary school and a neighborhood high school. To find yours, type your address into the GoCPS School Search tool. That same search shows your tier (more on tiers below).

You do not apply to your neighborhood school through GoCPS. CPS says families go directly to the school to enroll, and you should bring proof of residency. Once enrolled, your child re-enrolls automatically each year unless they accept a GoCPS offer somewhere else. If you move after enrolling, your child can stay through the school’s last grade, but tell the school. If you move before enrolling, you get the new address’s assignment. Details are on the CPS pages for neighborhood elementary and neighborhood high school programs.

A few things local parents learn the hard way:

• The guarantee covers the general education program only. If your neighborhood high school has an IB or career program, that still takes a GoCPS application and is not automatic.
• Pre-K is separate. If your child is in pre-K somewhere other than your neighborhood school, you need a GoCPS application for kindergarten there, and priority is not guaranteed.
• Pre-K itself is applied for through Chicago Early Learning, not GoCPS. Applications for 2026-27 are open.
• Visit before you rule a school in or out. Test scores do not tell you much about a specific classroom, and many neighborhood schools run their own open houses in the fall.

Selective enrollment and testing

High school

CPS has 11 selective enrollment high schools: Brooks, Hancock, Jones, King, Lane Tech, Lindblom, Northside Prep, Payton, South Shore International, Westinghouse and Young. A student can apply to up to six.

Admission is points-based. Per the CPS selection page, half the points come from final seventh-grade grades and half from the High School Admissions Test (HSAT). The first 30% of seats go to the highest scorers citywide. The other 70% are split evenly among the four tiers, filled by the highest scorers within each tier. Ties are broken by the math section, then reading, then a lottery. Each student gets at most one selective enrollment offer: the highest-ranked school they qualify for.

The HSAT is now the PreACT 9 Secure, about 2.5 hours with English, math, reading and science sections. Every GoCPS applicant to ninth grade takes the test in eighth grade. CPS eighth graders test at their own school on the school day. Non-CPS students, such as those in private or parochial schools, register in GoCPS and pick a weekend date. There are no retakes.

What tiers are

Every city address has a tier from 1 to 4, based on census-tract measures including median family income, single-parent households, homeownership, English spoken at home, adult education levels and nearby elementary school scores. See the CPS tiers page. Your tier is fixed by your address when you apply, so a move in January does not change it.

Elementary

Selective enrollment elementary programs include regional gifted centers and classical schools (both K-8), academic centers (grades 7-8, housed in high schools, where students take high school classes) and regional gifted centers for English learners. Any age-eligible child applying for kindergarten through fourth grade may test. For grades 5-8 there are GPA minimums: 3.0 for classical schools and gifted centers, 2.5 for academic centers and the English learner programs. Classical applicants in grades 5-8 must also score at or above the median in both reading and math. Families can apply to up to six classical and academic center programs combined. Tiers apply only at entry grades, and there are no sibling or proximity preferences. Testing runs roughly October through January or early February, and you book the appointment inside GoCPS. The testing page warns that a test slot is deleted if you do not submit the application within one hour of scheduling.

Paying for prep (optional)

Plenty of families skip paid prep. If you want it, a few local options are verified and active this fall.

The oldest of these is Test Prep Chicago, which started in 2011 when founder Charlie Howard began tutoring eighth graders for Chicago’s high school entrance exams. The company has no storefront and runs group courses at sites around the city plus online. Their site lists a 16-hour PreACT 9 course at $575 and a four-hour, one-day practice-test workshop they call Palooza at $190, and they also prep kids for the academic center exam. Phone (312) 848-1266.

On the North Side, Academic Approach is a tutoring and test prep company with an office at 342 W Armitage Ave. in Lincoln Park, near Armitage and Clark. They do one-on-one and small-group prep for the CPS admissions test and start with a free diagnostic test. The 73 Armitage bus runs past the door, and the Armitage Brown Line stop is roughly a 15-minute walk west. Street parking on that stretch tends to be tight. Their site lists office hours as 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekends; phone (888) 394-5060.

For help at home, Chicago Home Tutor sends tutors to your house, which saves a weeknight drive. The company lists an office on W. Belmont Avenue in Roscoe Village and does HSAT prep alongside its main work in reading, math and support for kids with ADHD, dyslexia or autism. Phone (312) 622-1494.

Magnet, charter and choice

Choice programs are everything that is not your neighborhood program or selective enrollment. You can rank up to 20 choice programs, and GoCPS gives one best offer in this category.

At the elementary level, CPS lists magnet schools (one focus, such as fine arts, world language or technology), magnet cluster schools (a focus, with seats for kids inside the attendance boundary first), open enrollment schools and dual language schools. Seats go by random lottery, with sibling, staff, proximity and pre-K preferences where they apply, and tiers in some programs. No test is required. See the elementary choice programs page.

High school choice programs cover IB, honors, STEM, fine and performing arts, dual language, military-style service leadership academies and a long list of career and technical programs, from health sciences and IT to culinary and construction. Some use a lottery, others use points, and some have a GPA minimum, testing or an audition. The high school choice programs page lists them.

Charters are public, tuition-free and independently run. At the elementary level, CPS says you apply directly through each charter school rather than through GoCPS, so check each school’s own process and deadline.

One honest drawback: a great program across town means a long commute. Students 20 and younger ride the CTA for 75 cents with up to two transfers within two hours, any time, with a Student Ventra Card, per the CTA. Ask each school what transportation, if any, it provides before you rank it.

The GoCPS application timeline

These are the dates for the 2027-28 school year, from the GoCPS page. GoCPS handles applications for kindergarten through ninth grade. Students transferring into grades 10-12 do not apply through GoCPS.

• September 9, 2026, 10 a.m.: application and HSAT registration opened.
• October 7, 2026: HSAT for CPS eighth graders, during the school day.
• October 14 to December 11, 2026: elementary acceleration (grade-skipping) application window.
• October 17-18 and October 24-25, 2026: weekend HSAT dates for non-CPS students. The signup deadline is 10 business days before the test date.
• November 13, 2026, 5 p.m.: application closes. Elementary early entrance applications close the same day.
• February 12, 2027: initial high school offers.
• March 12, 2027: initial elementary offers.

How ranking works: you rank choice and selective enrollment programs separately, in order of preference. GoCPS lines your child up for every program by lottery number or points, then gives the highest-ranked match. Rank honestly; putting a long shot first does not cost you your later choices.

After offers come out, families have three weeks to accept in the initial round. Accepting one offer declines every other offer, and an offer not accepted by the deadline expires. There is a rolling waitlist after that. Log in at apply.cps.edu. The Office of Access and Enrollment is at (773) 553-2060 and gocps@cps.edu.

Good to know

Checked September 28, 2026. The HSAT signup deadline for the October 17 weekend is 10 business days out, which lands in early October, so non-CPS eighth graders should register now. Many high schools hold fall open houses listed in GoCPS; some require signups. Elementary test appointments go fastest early in the window. Prep businesses set their own schedules, and most fall courses started over the summer.

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