Our Application Process

Thank you for your interest in Mountain Island Charter School!  

Our Process

• Applications for the lottery are available online from November 1st to January 31st each year. Paper applications are available at the front office of both the elementary (D Building) and the middle/high school (C Building). Applications received after January 31st go to the wait list. Admissions priorities will apply.
• You must reapply each year. Lottery numbers do not carry over from year to year.
• The lottery will be held on the second Wednesday in February. You are not required to be present.
• Once a student is enrolled and attending the school, 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 

• Mountain Island Charter School 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), Mountain Island Charter School 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.
• MICS reserves the right to refuse admission to any student that has not met the academic requirements for the grade level they have applied to enter.
• MICS 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

• For the full Enrollment and Lottery Procedures, you may download the document here.
• MICS's 2025-2026 school year lottery will be held at Mountain Island Charter School on Wednesday, February 12, 2025.  Official results will be sent to parents/guardians by email on Friday, February 14, 2025 after 4:00 PM.
• The MICS 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 hosted and maintained by Scribbles.
• When the lottery is run, it will assign a random number to every single applicant. The applicants are then either placed or wait listed according to priority and space availability in each grade level. Twins and triplets are always admitted together and cannot be split by the school 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. Enrollment priority at MICS may be awarded to the following, with priority given in this order:

1. 1. Children or grandchildren of MICS full-time employees and MICS Board of Directors not to exceed a maximum of 15% of the school’s total enrollment, unless granted a waiver by the State Board of Education.
   2. Siblings of students currently enrolled in MICS who were admitted to MICS in a previous year.
   3. Siblings who apply to the charter school for admission beginning in the same school year, such as when a sibling was not initially admitted due to grade level capacity.
   4. Siblings of students who have graduated from MICS and who were enrolled in at least 4 grade levels at MICS.
   5. A student who was enrolled in MICS within the 2 previous school years but left the school 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. Multiple geographic returns in the same grade or program will be seated on a first come first served basis.
   6. A student whose parent or legal guardian is on active military duty.
   7. A student enrolled in another charter school in NC 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. Admissions priorities will be honored. 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 2025-2026 school year, late entries will be accepted (added to the end of the wait list), 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.