New York City fifth graders began the process of applying to middle schools on Wednesday — with far fewer campuses opting to go back to pre-pandemic “screened” admissions.

Just 59 out of 478 middle schools will use academic screenings this admissions cycle, either for all students or for specific programs.

That’s down close to 70% from before the COVID-19 pandemic, when 196 middle schools used selective admissions in some form.

Ten out of the 32 school districts that considered academic records in admissions to some programs in 2019-20 will no longer look at grades at all when making offers.

Selective admissions — which put a premium on grades or test scores — were paused under former mayor Bill de Blasio in favor of a lottery when those metrics were disrupted during the pandemic.

Last month, Schools Chancellor David Banks put an end to the mandatory lottery process, allowing local superintendents to choose whether to apply for screened middle school programs in their district, based on feedback from parents to principals.

“It was critically important that these decisions be made at the district level,” Banks told reporters. “In the past a lot of these decisions were made top-down at Tweed.”

“We know that a one-size-fits-all approach just would not work for a city as diverse as New York,” he added.

Prospective middle schoolers will be ranked based on a composite of their fourth-grade marks, Banks announced last month. In previous years, schools could select their own criteria, which sometimes included other metrics like attendance, tardiness and test scores.

“This is a simpler and fairer process,” the chancellor added on Wednesday.

The “vast majority” of the remaining roughly 400 middle schools will continue with the randomized approach, while others may use arts auditions based on a program’s subject area of focus, according to the Department of Education.

Officials could not say how many students the dozens of screened programs will enroll since those numbers are not yet final. They also did not know how many schools historically used measures other than grades to determine admissions, saying they did not track that information.

The late-September admissions announcement gave district leaders less than a month for public engagement to make those decisions, raising concerns among families who were worried their voices would not be heard.

Supes on Wednesday were adamant that could not be further from the case, citing a rigorous community engagement process through meetings and surveys both online and in person, and in multiple languages.

“We were thinking about this issue before it became public, before the announcement,” said Superintendent Kamar Samuels of District 3, which spans from the Upper West Side to Morningside Heights and parts of Harlem.

District 3 is axing 15 screened middle schools and programs, Samuels announced on Wednesday, though he committed to reconsidering their approach each year.

“Families felt the lottery might be working now, and it might be working now because of lower enrollment,” Samuels said. “So they said what about next year, when we hopefully see an increase in enrollment?”

Roughly 97% of District 3 families received one of their top three schools under the lottery this school year, Samuels said. The superintendent also surveyed principals, 24 of 30 of which wanted to keep the random system in place.

But parents on Wednesday were mixed whether they felt their preferences were heard.

In a major shift, District 2 that covers most of lower and midtown Manhattan is nixing all 18 screened programs and schools since before the pandemic — despite significant pushback from some families, including several recent resolutions passed by its parent-led Community Education Council pushing for selective criteria.

In its place, Superintendent Kelly McGuire said the district will expand honors or accelerated math programs to all middle schools to provide accelerated options without adding back screens — a welcomed change for other families.

“I’m especially weary of the whole process,” said Gavin Healy, whose son is in the fifth grade in District 2 and has a disability. “This is a process that fills parents with a lot of anxiety, especially parents of students with disabilities. This makes it a much more straightforward and easy process.”

Plus, Healy was glad the changes lowered the stakes in the application process: “They’re only 10 years old. This is not the time for ultra-competitive. At 10, I don’t think that’s really where it’s at.” 

In fact, all school districts in Manhattan reduced the number of selective programs on Wednesday, except for District 5 in Manhattan covering most of Harlem, where the number will stay the same.

For years, screening at the middle school level has emerged as a hot-button issue for parents pushing for more accelerated learning programs and merit-based admissions — while others have raised concerns that the process leads to high-achieving schools enrolling fewer black and Hispanic students, and assessing students at too young an age.

District 15 — which spans from Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, to Hook and Sunset Park — implemented its own diversity plan before the pandemic that throws all students into a lottery for its 11 middle schools. More than half of seats at each school were reserved for needy students, with priority given to children who speak English as a second language, who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, or who live in temporary housing.

The Brooklyn district will keep that process in place, Superintendent Rafael Alvarez announced Wednesday.

Only two school districts responded to community feedback by adding new screened programs, and both were in Queens. District 25 in the north central area of the borough added two additional selective options, while District 29 in eastern Queens will offer another three programs. 

A fifth grade parent in Queens’ District 30 — which will still offer screened programs, but got rid of three since the start of the pandemic — said she had “mixed feelings” about her district’s plan.

Her son is in the 97 percentile, but received a “really bad” lottery number: “With that bad of a lottery number, I’m not sure how that’s going to play out. So it’s going to come down to the lottery number,” she said.

“I’m not sure how worth it it is for me to try going to all these open houses, and do as much research as I was planning on doing,” she added. 

One citywide gifted and talented program will no longer screen students — P.S. 686, the Brooklyn School of Inquiry.

In contrast, screens were reimplemented citywide for high schools. Banks also announced a series of changes to high school admissions last month, intended to make the process more family-friendly, transparent and fair, officials said at the time.

Middle school applications opened on Wednesday — earlier than in past years — and will close on December 1. Offers are expected to be released in April.