Now Accepting Grade 5-10 Applications for 2025-26!

Excel Academy offers life-changing opportunities that
prepare our students for college and career success.

Join us for the 2025-2026 school year!

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a network of excellence

Excel Academy Charter Schools, established over 20 years ago, is a network of tuition-free, public charter schools located in East Boston and Chelsea. The network includes three middle schools and one high school.

Our middle school program spans from 5th grade to 8th grade, ensuring a comprehensive educational experience. All students currently enrolled in our middle schools are guaranteed a place in our high school, which caters to students from 9th to 12th grade.

Enrollment begins at the 5th-grade level, with more than 170 seats available each year in our 5th-grade class. We encourage all interested 4th-grade families to apply, as this is the best opportunity to secure a seat at Excel Academy.

free to Apply

Application guidelines

  • Students entering grades 5 through 10 for the 2025-26 school year

  • All residents of Boston and Chelsea are encouraged to apply

  • Applications must be submitted before the deadline of February 28, 2025

A lottery will take place on March 6, with results sent to applicants shortly afterward.

Contact us

Our recruitment team is available to answer your questions!

  • Call 617-466-9384

  • Email enrollment@excelacademy.org

  • Visit Excel East Boston 58 Moore Street | East Boston, MA

  • Visit Excel Academy Chelsea 180 2nd St. | Chelsea, MA

  • Visit Excel Academy Greenway 375 Bremen St. | East Boston, MA

  • Visit Excel Academy High School 401 Bremen St. | East Boston, MA 02128

three girls make heart shapes with their hands

What I love most about Excel Academy Charter School is that all three of my children were shown how much potential they had. They were supported in ways that were unique to them whether that was with their individual learning challenges or encouraging them to push themselves even further.

Evie – Excel Academy Parent

Application process

Submit an Application

Applications open from October 1, 2024 to February 28, 2025. Apply online here.

Participate in the Enrollment Lottery

Lottery Date: March 6, 2025

Our student enrollment lotteries will determine the order of our grade-level waitlists. When you apply, you are considered for all campus locations within the region. Each grade level has its own waitlist.

Receive an Enrollment Offer

Once our waitlists are established, we will extend offers based on the order in which students are placed on the waitlist, depending on grade-level vacancies.

Our primary entry point is the 5th grade, and we begin making offers for this grade first.

Offers for students entering 6th grade and beyond are typically made at the end of the school year, once we finalize decisions on student retentions and re-enrollments.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Boston Charter School Application, launched this year by the Boston Charter Alliance, allows families to apply for multiple children to several charter schools (if they choose) at once using either a mobile phone, iPad or tablet, or computer.

The online application was created to ease the process for families to apply to one, or many, charter schools located in and near Boston. This new application process was developed with the sole intention of providing families with a simpler, more positive application experience.

This application does not in any way impact your odds of admittance to any one school, nor does it impact the way our lotteries are conducted.

Any child who is a resident of Massachusetts at the time of application and/or enrollment is eligible to apply and attend. Your child must have successfully completed the grade preceding the grade to which he or she apply prior to the start of the school year. This means that any child applying for 5th grade must successfully complete 4th grade before the next school year begins, and so on. Excel accepts applications for students entering grades 5-10.

Excel Academy Charter School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, creed, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, age, ancestry, athletic performance, special needs, proficiency in the English language or a foreign language, or prior academic achievement.

Yes. All residents of the state of Massachusetts are eligible to apply.

Yes. Excel’s waitlists do not carry over from one year to the next. You must reapply each year if you are interested in enrolling your child at Excel Academy.

Applications will be available in October of the current year, https://bostoncharterschools.schoolmint.net/

All applications must be received by February 29th at 11:59PM.

Excel Academy has one application for all four campus locations. Families are able to rank their 1st-3rd choice for our middle school locations. Excel will assign students to a campus based on geographic proximity, student safety, or programmatic needs. If a student has a sibling attending an Excel campus we will prioritize assigning their sibling to the same campus location.

Yes. If you have a child currently enrolled at any of our Excel Academy campuses, you must submit an application for any additional children who are eligible to apply.

The Boston Charter School Application has a section where families may indicate if the applicant has a sibling currently enrolled at the schools for which they are applying. Please be sure to complete this section so we can appropriately apply sibling preference. All sibling claims will be verified by the school before the lottery.

You must provide proof of residency at the time your child is offered a seat. You do not need to provide proof of residency prior to the lottery. Admission is dependent upon a family’s ability to produce proof of residency.

  • A Utility Bill dated within the past 60 days
  •  A Deed, Mortgage Payment dated within the past 60 days, or Property Tax Bill dated within the last year
  • A current Lease, Section 8 Agreement, or Landlord Affidavit
  • A W2 form dated within the year or a Payroll Stub dated within the past 60 days
  • A Bank or Credit Card Statement dated within the past 60 days
  • A Letter from an Approved Government Agency* dated within the past 60 days

Please visit the side link titled “Proof of Residency” to learn more about how to submit proofs of residency. If you have questions about what constitutes proof of residency or feel you are unable to provide this documentation, please email enrollment@excelacademy.org or call (617) 874-4142.

All students are admitted to Excel through a blind, public lottery. Excel grants enrollment preference first to students whose siblings are currently attending Excel Academy Charter School (regardless of the campus at which the sibling is enrolled) and then to students who reside in Boston or Chelsea.

At the time of the lottery in March, all students applying for grades 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 will automatically be placed on the waitlist. We automatically generate a waitlist because we will not know the number of open seats in those grades until the end of the academic year when all grades have been finalized. As seats become available, we will begin accepting students off the waitlist.

Excel’s lotteries are all executed electronically using software created by an unaffiliated third party. The lotteries are run one grade level at a time beginning with 5th grade. All lotteries are open to the public which means families are welcome to attend.

If a student withdraws from Excel during the year, we will back fill all open seats at our four campuses by accepting students off the waitlist through February 15th of the current academic year.

Please contact enrollment@excelacademy.org for information on upcoming events.

A student who meets the definitions of McKinney-Vento as being homeless must be considered eligible to apply regardless of residency documentation. The McKinney-Vento Act prohibits students who meet the definition of homeless from being barred from enrollment due to lack of required documentation. Please review the Department’s Homeless Education Advisories for additional information. Homeless students, however, must still provide reasonable proof of residency to receive an admission preference based on where they are temporarily living. What is reasonable proof of the city or town in which a homeless student’s is temporarily living depends upon the circumstances. In some situations, if other reasonable documentation is not available, an affidavit may be sufficient. Homeless students should receive a residency preference based on the location of their temporary residence; if their temporary residence is located within the charter school’s sending region, they are entitled to a residency preference. The location of a student’s prior permanent residence does not provide a residency preference for admission.