P-Tech Principal Rashid Davis, shown speaking to prospective students at a fair in February, was at last week's supplementary round fair.

If you are one of the 8,000 8th graders who were rejected at all their high school choices, here's our advice: Fill out a new application by April 15, even if you don't love the choices you are offered. If you are ultimately assigned to a school that simply won't work for you, you can appeal--but only after you have been matched to a school. (You'll get the results from the supplementary round on May 27; appeals are due on June 3.)

A few hundred schools still have spaces for incoming 9th or 10th graders, and we learned about some promising ones at the supplementary high school fair at the Martin Luther King educational complex last week. Many of the schools are squeezing in open houses, tours, and auditions this week. Check their websites or call them for details.

There were crowds around the tables of the not-yet-open Millennium Brooklyn. It  only filled about half of its 108 seats in the main round, principal Lisa Gioe said.  Frank McCourt, finishing its first year, is one of the few selective schools to still have seats.  The Gateway program at John Bowne in Queens  had an attractive visual display and articulate students describing their satisfaction with the high level science program.

At Maspeth, a liberal arts school  in Queens set to open in 2011, the principal patiently explained to some very interested Manhattan residents that priority in admissions will go to students who live in District 24. In its first year it will share a building with another neighborhood school, Queens Metropolitan which was so popular in its first year that it had to take in 400 students rather than the 200 it had planned on. Lots of other new schools are opening in 2011 -- check out our write-ups about them.<!--more-->

Brooklyn Frontiers High School, a school for students who are at least two years behind in their studies -15 or 16-year-olds who  have completed 8th grade, will open (pending approval by the Panel for Educational Priorities later this month)  in the Pacific High School building in downtown Brooklyn.  Parents of a special needs students were impressed by what they learned about Murray Hill in the Norman Thomas High School building, which provides a new computer to every student, and offers some seats to transfer students as well as incoming 9th-graders.

For students with talent and interest in the arts, there are several options: High School of Art and Design, High School of Fashion Industries and Brooklyn High School of the Arts. Note that they expect you to audition.

More than 10 percent of 8th graders weren't matched at a high school in the main round this year, more than in recent years. Rob Sanft, the new director of the DOE"s enrollment office, said graduation rates  were published in the high school directory for the first time, and parents shunned schools with subpar graduation rates. That meant too many people applied to the same schools, a fact that was borne out by the number of applications tosmall schools with stellar graduation rates.

The solution? It's no secret that the city needs more good schools, and time for some of the new schools to develop a following, Sanft said.

Were you at the fair? Share your thoughts about best options.