Every year, there are more applicants to Philly charters than seats. But demand is still lower than before the pandemic.

More than 26,000 students applied for seats for the 2023-24 school year at the 72 Philadelphia charter-school campuses participating in a centralized application process — up from two years ago, though still below pre-pandemic levels, according to the nonprofit that manages the system.

About 7,600 of this year’s applicants received at least one offer to attend a charter, leaving more than 18,000 students on waitlists, according to Elevate215, which manages the Apply Philly Charter website.

Much of the demand appeared to be concentrated at several charter schools in the Northeast, where the three MaST schools likely account for about half of the wait-listed students. (The perennially popular charters received more than 24,000 applications for 315 seats; CEO John Swoyer estimated those applications represented 10,000 individual students.)

Some students received multiple charter-school offers following lotteries earlier this month, meaning the total number on waitlists should decrease after Friday’s deadline for students to accept a seat at one school.

The numbers don’t fully reflect the demand for seats at brick-and-mortar charters in Philadelphia, where about one-third of the city’s 200,000 public school students are enrolled in the independently run schools. Charters are authorized and funded by the Philadelphia School District — a point of tension, because more charter enrollment means less money for the district. (Cyber charter schools also draw funding from the district but are authorized by the state.)

Philadelphia has granted 83 charters, with some operating more than one campus. Apply Philly Charter counts campuses, rather than schools: 72 of 102 total campuses participate in the application system.

Still, the application system — which has existed for five years — is the only centralized accounting of how many students are applying to charter schools, and it shows some trends.

Fewer students are applying to charters than before the pandemic. The number of applicants grew from 29,500 in 2019-20 to more than 34,000 in 2020-21, then fell to fewer than 24,000 the next year. Over the last two years, the number of applicants has rebounded to more than 26,000, though it has yet to reach the levels seen several years ago.

Scott Peterman, CEO of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence, an advocacy group representing 80 of the city’s 83 charters, said the decreased numbers reflected an “overall disconnect from public education” during the pandemic. He also noted that Apply Philly Charter was relatively new heading into the pandemic.

Even though numbers are down, there are still far more students looking to get into charters than there are seats, Peterman said, showing the “sustained community push and demand for these schools.”

The district and charter sector should be “coming together to figure out how to accommodate these students and families, especially in the zip codes that year over year are producing the highest number of applicants,” Peterman said. For the last five years, three zip codes in the Northeast — 19124, 19111, and 19149 — have supplied the most applicants.

In addition to the three MaST schools, the other charter-school campuses that received the most applicants are also in the Northeast: First Philadelphia Preparatory Charter School, Keystone Academy Charter School, Mariana Bracetti Academy Charter School, the K-8 and high school campuses of New Foundations Charter School, Tacony Academy Charter Elementary School, and Tacony Academy Charter High School. (Elevate215 supplied a non-ranked list of the 10 charter-school campuses that drew the most applicants.)

Peterman also noted that charter applications jumped at the transition grade levels of kindergarten and ninth grades, with demand higher than any year except 2020-21.

“These are areas where families are traditionally engaging at looking at different options,” Peterman said, adding that the number of charter applicants “shows a desire to stay in the city. ... I think that’s something that can’t be overlooked or underappreciated right now.”