Lottery registrations for the 2021-2022 school year will open on November 15th

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Our process

• Applications for the lottery are available online from November 15th to January 31st each year. Paper applications are available at the front office. Applications received after January 31st go to the waitlist.
  
• You must re-apply each year. Lottery numbers do not carry over from year to year.
  
• The lottery will be held at 2:00 on February 10th of every year in the Gym.  All applicants will receive notification by February 26th by email of acceptance or waiting list number.
  
• Once a student is enrolled, there is no need to reapply each subsequent year. A student’s seat is guaranteed until at least the first day of school unless a parent notifies the school otherwise.

Admission Standards

• Southwest Charlotte STEM Academy is a public school and requires no application fee or tuition.
  
• In order to be eligible for admission, students or their guardian are required to reside in the State of North Carolina at the time of the application.
  
• Under North Carolina General Statute (GS115C-391), SCSA  may refuse admission to any student who has been expelled or suspended from a public school, until the period of suspension or expulsion has expired.
  
• SCSA does not limit admission to students on the basis of intellectual ability, measures of achievement or aptitude, athletic ability, disability, race, creed, gender, national origin, religion, or ancestry.

Lottery Procedures 

SCSA’s 2021-22 lottery will be held at Southwest Charlotte STEM Academy on February 10th of every year.  Results will be sent to parents by email if an address was supplied, or by postal service. 

The SCSA lottery is open to the general public, but attendance is not required for acceptance.

The lottery procedure must ensure that each eligible applicant, who submitted an application prior to the lottery application deadline, will have an equal opportunity to be randomly selected. It must also continue until all eligible applicants have been selected and placed on a final list.

The lottery will be run by a computer program written specifically for SCSA.

When the lottery is run, it will assign a random number to every single applicant. Family members will be entered as a group and will all be placed at the same time. The applicants are then either placed or waitlisted according to priority and space availability in each grade level. Twins and triplets are always admitted together and cannot be split at admission.

Priority of Enrollment

Priority in enrollment is not a guarantee of a seat, there must be available space in grade or program. Once a student uses any enrollment priority to enroll, he or she may not use any priority again. Enrolled students who subsequently withdraw must use the lottery process without priority to re-enroll. The only exception is for the Opportunity priority.

Enrollment priority may be awarded to the following, with priority given in this order:

1. Children of the school’s full-time employees and Board of Directors. This number cannot exceed 15% of the school’s total enrollment unless granted a waiver by the State Board of Education.

2. Siblings of currently enrolled students. Applicants must share a residence and a legal guardian with a currently enrolled SCSA student to be considered an eligible sibling. 

3. Siblings of SCSA graduates.

4. Opportunity priority. A student who was enrolled at SCSA within the two previous school years but left to participate in (1) an academic study abroad program or competitive admission residential program or (2) because of the vocational opportunities of the student’s parent. 

5. Current Charter school students. A student enrolled in another NC Charter school in the previous school year.

Post Application Period Applications 

The school will decide each year whether or not to accept applications after the deadline. 

If accepted, any applications received after the stated deadline will be added to the end of the waiting list in the order that they are received. Order of receipt will be determined by the time stamp on the email or online entry, and the time of day that standard mail is delivered on that day. If multiple late entries are received simultaneously (exact same timestamp or mail delivery day), they will be listed in alphabetical order of their middle name (or first if no middle is given).   

For the 2021-2022 school year, late entries will be accepted (added to the end of the waitlist), until at least the first day of school, or the date where it appears the waiting list will be too long to accommodate. Any late enrollment application cutoff will be posted on the website and is effective immediately.