The Boston School Committee shifted the year-old highly-controversial exam school admissions policy at Wednesday night’s meeting — rewriting the policy just enough so it’s no longer mathematically impossible for some students to get into certain schools.

“After the last admission cycle, it became clear that the award of 10 additional points was leading to a situation that made it mathematically impossible for a small number of students to receive an invitation to their first choice school even if they had that perfect score,” said Superintendent Mary Skipper. … “We’ve analyzed this year’s data to find a solution to this specific issue.”

The latest policy, first enacted for 2023-24 exam school applicants, gave students who went to schools with a population of over 40% economically disadvantaged students a 10 point advantage in their applications for the city’s three exam schools, among other policy shifts.

The change passed Wednesday adjusts the number of bonus points within each socio-economic tier to reflect the points that would ensure every student has a shot at their first choice school based on previous year’s scores.

The Superintendent’s recommendation was developed at the request of the School Committee — even though Skipper repeatedly expressed hesitation to change the policy after a single year — after months of evaluating options. The change will go into effect for the next round of 2024-25 applicants.

“This is not a substantial change that we’re proposing and does not alter most importantly the intent of the policy, which was increasing socio-economic diversity at the three BPS exam schools, Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the O’Brien School of Math and Science,” Skipper said.

The adjustment would have shifted whether 6% of seventh grade applicants received an invitation to an exam school last year.

The fix is far from the only thing parents and students have found objectionable about the latest exam school admissions policy, as evidenced by critical public testimony at just about every school committee meeting since the district’s admissions decisions were released.

The admissions policy continues to use GPA and test scores to award seats. But in addition to the 10 point advantage, the newer policy distributes seats based on socioeconomic tiers determined by the neighborhood students live in — a system many have argued does not accurately reflect every student’s income background.

“I’ve been studying very hard because I want to go to exam school,” said Lisa, a sixth grader at the Josiah Quincy Upper School who noted she’s in tier seven but lives in public housing during testimony Wednesday. “But the reason why I think it is unfair is because every tier has families in different situations. And not everyone in each tier has low income or high income.”

The policy also awards students in DCF care, experiencing homelessness or in Boston Housing Authority housing an extra 15 points, which will not change under Wednesday’s alterations.

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Committee members unanimously voted in support for the narrow change, but most called for changes to not slow or stop here.

Member Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, who his colleagues noted has brought up the issue at every meeting since the summer and expressed strong frustration with the process again Wednesday, said other discussed options were “clearly not considered,” including finding a way to evaluate individual students’ income background.

“I think people actually want this to be something that is in constant conversation, until we have more families in the system who feel really confident in their options,” said Cardet-Hernandez.