Black student enrollment at Boston Latin School has more than doubled in the five years since an overhaul of the admissions process sought to increase diversity and make the prestigious exam school more broadly reflect the city it serves.
In the most recent academic year, Black students made up nearly 16 percent of enrollment, bringing the demographics of the school more closely in line with Boston, where just over 20 percent of residents are Black.
Five years ago, officials revamped the selection process at the city’s three exam schools to take into account socioeconomic factors. At the time, Black enrollment at Boston Latin School was less than 8 percent.
The city has also made it easier to take the entrance exam; instead of traveling to another school on a Saturday, public school students can now take the test at their own school on a weekday.
“Changing when and how the test is administered can make a real difference in access even without any kind of explicit consideration of neighborhood or school in the admissions policy,” said Melanie Rucinski, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who studies selective high schools.
Boston Latin School now has one of the largest Black student populations among the nation’s most prestigious public high schools. For example, Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where admission is based on a single test, has a Black enrollment of 2 percent in a city that is 22 percent Black.
The shift in Boston marks a significant change at the country’s oldest public school, which did not have a Black graduate until 242 years after its founding in 1635. It is also noteworthy in a city with a reputation for being unwelcoming to Black people, where the scars from a fight over court-ordered school desegregation still linger half a century later.
The overhaul of the admissions process at Boston’s exam schools followed a push by students who were critical of school administrators for mishandling reports of racism. On Martin Luther King Day in 2016, students launched the hashtag #BLACKatBLS, which helped trigger investigations and resignations.
Black and Latino students had been less likely to rank Boston Latin School as their first choice of exam schools, according to a report by Rucinski, the Harvard lecturer. One reason, she said, was because the school had frequently made headlines over allegations of racism.
The pandemic prompted the initial changes. As a safety measure, school officials suspended the entrance exam and adopted a temporary admissions system based on grades and applicants’ ZIP codes for the class entering in fall 2021.
Two years later, administrators reinstated the test as part of a new formula that also considered socioeconomic factors tied to where applicants lived and attended school.
In the last five years, Boston Latin School’s white enrollment has dropped by nearly 14 percentage points to 31 percent, according to state data. The number of Asian students (31 percent) and Latino students (17 percent) both ticked up slightly.
Another exam school, Boston Latin Academy, had a 10 percentage point drop in white enrollment, and 4 percentage points among Asian students. At the same time, Latino and Black students both increased by 6 percentage points, and the two groups each now make up nearly a third of the school.
The third exam school, O’Bryant School of Math & Science, experienced smaller enrollment swings. The number of Asian and Black students both fell 3 percentage points, while Latino and white enrollment both increased slightly.
Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement that her administration has “worked hard to implement reforms that ensure students from all of our neighborhoods have the opportunity to learn together at our city’s exam schools.”
Wu said she is proud the schools reflect the whole city. In the latest admissions cycle, every ZIP code except one — which encompasses Harvard Business School — has a student who received an invitation to one of the exam schools.
This fall, 965 students were admitted to seventh grade in one of the three exam schools, according to city data. The racial demographics remained similar to last year with a slight increase among Black students and a small decrease among Latino students.
The city again modified the admissions formula by removing school-based points, which had given a boost to applicants who had attended schools with a high concentration of students from low-income backgrounds. In addition, children who were homeless or under the care of the state Department of Children and Families received less of an advantage than last year.
The increase in Black students at Boston Latin School stands in sharp contrast to other top public high schools.
For its incoming class, Stuyvesant High School offered admission to 777 students. Only three of them were Black.
A similar disparity exists at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., where Black students represent 4 percent of the student body in a city that is 21 percent Black.
San Francisco’s well-known Lowell High School has a 2 percent Black enrollment, though the city’s Black population is just 5 percent.
When Boston overhauled its admission process, officials considered more than grades and test scores. In 2021, the city introduced a system that took into account the socioeconomic characteristics of where students lived.
The goal was to ensure the city’s most selective high schools were accessible to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, reducing their competition against families who could pay for private tutors and admission consultants.
“An admissions policy is one piece of a larger suite of policies needed to equalize educational opportunity,” said Sean Reardon, a Stanford University professor who studies educational inequality. “We should be thinking not just about admissions but about improving opportunities for disadvantaged students early on in their life.”
If the goal is to achieve a school population that reflects the city, admissions policies should ensure “kids from disadvantaged communities have the kind of opportunities that a Boston Latin provides,” Reardon said, “and not to penalize them for having grown up in a high-poverty community.”
A group of parents has sued twice over the new admissions formula, arguing it discriminates against white and Asian students. The initial lawsuit was unsuccessful, but they filed another last year arguing the city is using socioeconomic factors as a proxy for race.
Attorney Erin Wilcox, who is representing a group of parents, said that the current admissions policy violates the Constitution and that students should be evaluated on merit.
Boston schools are “trying to manipulate the competition for these schools to produce a racial result that has been predetermined,” Wilcox said.
Other advocates worry the recent tweaks to the admissions formula could over the long term reduce Black and Latino enrollment.
City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune, who is Black and graduated from Boston Latin School in 2004, said that more needs to be done to ensure exam schools are open to all but that Boston is moving in the right direction.
“There’s something really beautiful about citywide schools that are drawing people from all the neighborhoods,” Louijeune said, “so that you can get that diversity of race and class and understanding, and that’s what we want to achieve.”
Marcela Rodrigues can be reached at marcela.rodrigues@globe.com.