The school received almost 1,300 applications for grades seven through 12 this year. The school is not releasing data on acceptance rates at this point as matriculation has not yet been finalized.

In particular, a record number of male-identifying students applied for admission to the incoming seventh-grade class, with a total of 343 applications. The five-year average for seventh-grade applications from male-identifying students is 313.

Head of Admission and Enrollment Chris Sanders said despite the increase in applications from male-identifying students, the school aims to have an even balance between genders.

“Even though we received a record number of applications, our goal was still to have a gender-balanced class,” Sanders said. “We always seek to have as close as possible to a 50-50 gender distribution, and we still are aiming to achieve that for seventh grade. Essentially, it just meant that it’s more competitive for boys, since there were higher number of applications.”

Sanders said the higher number of applications may make more families interested in applying to the school.

“It’s a natural tendency for people to be intrigued [in what] a lot of people are interested in, so I suspect this will create renewed interest [at] the [schools] that a lot of these admitted seventh graders are matriculating from,” Sanders said. “I assume they’ll be curious about the activities and the academic profiles of these students, as families try to figure out how to give their children some sort of leg up in the process. That is another reason why our goal as an admissions committee was to make sure that we had a diverse class so that families would essentially bring their authentic selves to the process and not try to game the system.”

Archivist Alexis Arinsburg ’98, whose son will be entering the school as a new seventh grader next fall, said her family is happy about his acceptance.

“He was excited and also relieved,” Arinsburg said. “It is a long process to get to the finish line. He is excited to start his own Harvard-Westlake journey.”

Tess Rosenfeld ’25 said she hopes that the application rate for female-identifying students rises in proportion to that for male-identifying students.

“We should empower more girls to apply to top schools,” Rosenfeld said. “[The school] is a great place for girls, and I hope that more girls will feel welcome to apply here in the future.”