Best Houston Magnet Schools 2016
Approximately 8% of Houston ISD's (HISD) population participated in the magnet school lottery for the 2016 - 2017 school year, which is down from 10% last year. 17,464 students submitted 53,723 applications during the first, primary round of HISD's annual magnet school admissions process. Representing a decrease of 13% and 22% respectively from the previous year, HISD's magnet schools have hit a road bump versus last year's all-time high lottery participation.

This section explains the results of Houston ISD's magnet lottery for the 2016 - 2017 academic year.

If you are unsure what this lottery is even all about, click here to learn about the process.

Most Competitive Magnets

Qualified applicants had about a 4% chance of admission to HISD's most competitive schools.

Most Popular Magnets

An average of 2,119 students applied to HISD's most popular magnet schools.

Most Coveted Magnets

About 96% of admitted students accepted their offers at HISD's most coveted schools.
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General Findings

13% Decline in Participating Students
17,464 students participated in the 2016 - 2017 lottery, which nearly erases last year's gains when 20,086 students participated.

22% Decline in Applications
These 17,464 students applied to an average of 3.07 schools each yielding a total of 53,723 applications versus last year's 68,830.
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Demand Exceeds Supply by 12% to 64%
Versus last year, HISD increased the number of available magnet seats by 25%. Seat for application, this increase helped pare the demand/supply ratio to 12% demand exceeding supply. However, parents really only desired 6,240 of the available seats more than average.

101 Magnet Schools for 2016
36% of HISD's 280 campuses offer magnet programs. For the 2016-17 academic year, there were 101 campuses including 53 elementary, 26 middle, and 30 high school program options; the number of programs exceeds the number of campuses since campuses sometimes include multiple programs (i.e. middle and high school or elementary and middle school). 

1 New School and 2 Axed Schools
Horn and Roberts Elementary schools lost their magnet status this year as their popularity as neighborhood schools meant that they had no availability for out of zone, magnet transfer students. Kolter Elementary will likely lose its status for the 2017-2018 year for the same reason. Shadowbriar Elementary is a new magnet school, but with only a 5% yield rate, it's proving a tough sell.

Only 77% of Applications Qualified
HISD schools discard nearly one-quarter of applications because they do not meet minimum qualifications. The three main reasons for not meeting a school's qualifying criteria include a) residency, b) gifted and talented testing and c) special auditions or academic testing.

Over Half of Schools Undesirable
Out of 101 school options, 59 (up from 48 last year) of them had below average yield rates, meaning that parents rejected offers when they were made. 24 schools (up from 19) received half of all applications submitted; the top 43 schools received 75% of all applications.

For our analysis on the 2015 - 2016 academic year, click here. We are still analyzing this dataset; we will add more findings as they're available.
Article last updated on May 18, 2016.

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