School of Science and Technology - Application Process

Application Process

Until 2007, students who wished to apply were required to follow an application process which involved writing three essays and an interview from one of the SST teachers. However, in effect from 2007–2008 onward, the Beaverton School District simplified the application process to a single "option school" application. This removed the essays and the interview from the application process. Due to the controversy of the change in application process, the Beaverton School District modified their new system to allow 15% of students to be accepted based on talent or sibling status, while the other 85% would continue to use the streamlined application.

This new application process is a point of controversy among students, who hold one of two points of view. The first is that the new, incoming students, will not be weeded out from the harder application, which before the change, meant that only students that wanted to attend would be accepted to SST. They fear that the attitude of students who are accepted into SST, by the easier application, will change the unique culture that they have grown accustomed to. The second opinion is that SST will gain new life from the potential "flood" of new students who were put off by the old application process. Students of this line of thought use the fact that the class of 2010 turned out to be much smaller than any of the other classes in recent history, presumably from lack of applicants under the old application process. This was a result of the teachers being unable to promote SST to as many 8th graders students. The new application process arguably better promotes SST to incoming freshmen.