Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School recently announced they are planning to transfer from their current system of admissions to a new lottery-based admissions process, based truly off luck.
This will begin following the 2025-2026 school year. A vote from the Tech’s school committee revealed that the change aligns with new state requirements issued by the DESE (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education), for career technical and agricultural schools. The state is currently reviewing the lottery-based admissions process, but is likely to be approved within the following weeks.
The school previously has selected students with a criteria of students’ grades, attendance, disciplinary record, and guidance counselor interview to determine admission. The new system is designed to ensure an equal amount of students are coming in across the 17 communities that the Tech serves.
The school has about 535 open spots for incoming freshmen, yet the school receives over 1,500 applications each year. Clearly, this is a big issue. Hence, the school is working on ways to determine the minimum number of seats for each of their communities based on previous enrollment over the years.
Violet Buckley, a DHS junior, who formerly attended the Tech, says “I feel as if the new lottery system will result in kids who are passionate about certain trades being rejected in favor of those who may not be.”
Overall, this change is drastic in the manner that admissions is now all up to chance, and primarily there will not be any advantages – or disadvantages – for any student who is hoping to get into the Tech now.
