Contact Information
| Principal: | Devon Herrick |
| Phone: | 773-535-2410 |
| Web site: | www.hancockhs.org |
| Address: |
4034 West 56th Street Chicago, IL 60629 |
| Freshman class size: | 296 |
| Total enrollment: | 967 (grades 9 – 12) |
Background
In the fall of 2015, Hancock College Prep became the newest Selective Enrollment High School.
Hancock hosts both a Selective Enrollment High School and a College and Technical Education (CTE) in the same facility. The Selective Enrollment and CTE programs have different curriculums and the CTE program has a different, less rigorous admissions process. Combining Selective Enrollment students with students admitted through a different process – within the same building – is a relatively new “trend”. Among the eleven school Selective Enrollment High School universe, only Westinghouse, South Shore and Jones College Prep also have a student base that is not 100% Selective Enrollment. Students living in the neighborhood will be given preference in admissions to the CTE portion of the school. Like Jones, Hancock’s CTE program will be have two tracks — a pre-law and pre-engineering pathway.
Unlike the other recent new addition to the Selective Enrollment family (South Shore), Hancock Selective Enrollment students will not receive a brand new building. However, the existing Hancock High School is undergoing extensive renovations.
Admissions
In its debut admissions year (2015-2016), Hancock posted an average score of 733, which was a respectable score for a new Selective Enrollment High School without a track record. In the most recent admissions cycle (2016-2017), the average admissions score rose 19 points to 752 points on the 900 points admissions scale.
In its first year, Hancock’s cut-off scores for Tier 4 students were lower than the ones for Tier 1 students as shown in Figure 3. This means that Hancock had difficulty attracting academically advanced middle class students.
In the most recent round of admissions (2016-2017) Tier 4 cut-off scores were marginally higher 652 points vs. 645 points — +7 points on the 900 point admissions scale. However, Tier 4 cut-off scores (652 points) lagged both Tier 3 (743 points) and Tier 2 (710 points). Ultimately to be a more successful Selective Enrollment High School, Hancock will have to prove more attractive to academically talented Tier 4 students.
Programs
It is assumed that Hancock will offer more AP classes than are available in its neighborhood curriculum, but unfortunately details about Hancock’s new curriculum are not yet available after a full academic year of its existence.
Performance
Hancock High School is too new for its students to have generated any academic performance statistics.