By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Staten Island Tech ’02 · Founding President, SI Tech Alumni Association · Tutoring since 2008 — Updated September 1, 2026
The Specialized High Schools Admissions Test is a standardized test administered by the New York City Department of Education. It is the only academic factor used to decide admission to eight of the nine NYC Specialized High Schools. Students take it in the fall of 8th grade, and students who are not accepted can take it once more in the fall of 9th grade for a chance to enter as a sophomore.
Table of Contents
What Is the SHSAT?
The SHSAT is a test given to 8th and 9th graders who want to attend a NYC Specialized High School, aside from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School. It tests English and math, the same two subjects NYC students are tested on at the end of every school year.
The SHSAT is harder than those school tests, and there’s a reason for that. The test has to create a disparity among scores. Seats at the specialized high schools are limited, so the test needs to spread students out far enough to rank them from highest score to lowest. A test where most students scored about the same would be useless for that purpose.
That’s why students who do well in school are often surprised by the SHSAT. It isn’t measuring whether a student has learned 8th grade material. It’s measuring how a student compares to every other student taking it that day.
Who Takes the SHSAT?
The SHSAT is offered to New York City residents in 8th grade who want to apply to a specialized high school. Students who are not accepted can take it once more in 9th grade, competing for a small number of seats that open up for sophomores.
In 2024, 25,678 students took the SHSAT and approximately 15.9% received an offer. That means approximately 5 out of every 6 students who take the test are not accepted.
More on taking the SHSAT in 9th grade and how the sophomore round differs from the 8th grade round.
How the SHSAT Is Structured
The SHSAT has two subjects: English Language Arts and Mathematics.
Beginning in fall 2026, students answer 50 questions per subject, or 100 questions in total. Every student answers the same number of questions and is tested on the same grade-level standards, the same content areas, and the same item types, according to the New York City Department of Education.
The English Language Arts questions fall into two groups. Revising and Editing questions test writing skills and grammar rules. Reading Comprehension questions test whether a student understood a passage and can answer questions about it.
The Mathematics questions cover the math NYC students learn through 8th grade, including number theory, algebra, and geometry.
The Test Is Now Adaptive
The SHSAT became a computer-adaptive test in fall 2026. The testing system re-estimates a student’s score after every answer and uses that estimate to choose the next question.
The practical consequence is that a student cannot go back and change an answer. Once a question is submitted, the next one appears, and there’s no returning to it.
This is the biggest change to the test in decades, and it makes most older prep advice wrong. More on how the SHSAT adapts, what stays the same for every student, and what it changes about test day.
How to Register for the SHSAT
Students register through the MySchools website before registration closes. Most students register online, though a school counselor can help with the process.
Before the test, students receive a test ticket stating the date, time, and location of their test.
Students also rank the specialized high schools in order of preference during registration. That order matters, because offers are made based on it. More on how to register for the SHSAT.
SHSAT Test Dates
The test date depends on where a student goes to school.
- NYC public school students take the test on a school day, normally at the end of October.
- Private, parochial, and charter school students take the test on a weekend in the middle of November.
- First-time 9th grade test takers take the test on a weekend at the beginning of December.
Test dates are normally announced before September. See the current SHSAT test dates and registration deadlines.
Fees for the SHSAT
There are no fees. The SHSAT is free for every eligible student.
The History of the SHSAT
The SHSAT exists because of a fight over how students were being admitted to New York City’s top public high schools.
In the 1960s, parents and teachers raised concerns about bias and confusion in the admissions process. There was no clear answer to how students were being chosen. Different schools appeared to use different standards, and families had no way to know what those standards were.
In 1971, New York State passed the Hecht-Calandra Act. The law made admission to Stuyvesant High School, The Bronx High School of Science, and Brooklyn Technical High School depend solely on a new test, which became the SHSAT. At the time those three were the only NYC Specialized High Schools.
The purpose was to create an objective standard. A single test score, applied the same way to every applicant, replaced a process nobody could explain.
Since 1971 the list has grown from three schools to nine. Staten Island Technical High School, The Brooklyn Latin School, the High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College, the High School of American Studies at Lehman College, and Queens High School for the Sciences at York College were all added over the following decades. Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School is also a specialized high school, but it admits students by audition or portfolio rather than by test score.
The Hecht-Calandra Act still governs admission to the three original schools: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech. Changing how those three admit students would require action by New York State.
The five schools added later were not named in the 1971 law. Whether the city can change admissions at those five on its own, without going through Albany, is disputed. That legal split is why proposals to change specialized high school admissions have been argued for years without resolution, and it’s worth understanding for any family following the debate.
Read more about the 8 NYC specialized high schools that use the test.
What Should Students Know Before Taking the SHSAT?
Knowing what the SHSAT is and how to sign up for it is separate from knowing what score gets a student in and how to reach it. Here’s a summary of the rest, with links to the full guides.
What Score Do You Need?
There is no passing score on the SHSAT. Students are ranked by their composite score, and offers are made in rank order until each school fills its seats.
That means a school’s cut-off score isn’t set in advance. It’s whatever the lowest accepted score turned out to be that year. See the full list of SHSAT cut-off scores by school and year.
Which Schools Use the SHSAT?
Eight of the nine NYC Specialized High Schools admit students based on the SHSAT alone. LaGuardia is the exception, since it admits by audition or portfolio.
The eight schools are different sizes, in different boroughs, and known for different things. More on the 8 NYC specialized high schools.
How to Prepare for the SHSAT
The best way to start is with a realistic practice test. The NYC Guide to the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, normally called the SHSAT handbook, is published by the DOE and includes two sample practice tests. It’s free.
Caddell Prep also offers a free diagnostic SHSAT with an advanced assessment that shows which topics are costing a student the most points. Students can create a free account and take one on their own, or contact us to take one with us.
Most students use a combination of resources. See all SHSAT prep options to compare classes, tutoring, and our on-demand course.
Glyn Caddell
Glyn Caddell holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from NJIT and has been tutoring New York City students since 2008. He founded Caddell Prep in 2012 and is the author of Digital SAT Math Secrets: Lessons & Tricks to Quickly Improve to a Perfect 800 on the Math Test, which contains over 900 practice problems and is used in Caddell Prep’s SAT math classes. He is founding president of the Staten Island Technical High School alumni association and teaches every lesson on this site personally.
About 5 out of every 6 students who take the SHSAT don’t get an offer.
Students in our SHSAT course average a 19.2% increase in ELA and 17.7% in math. 20 interactive lessons, 3 full-length practice tests, and video explanations to learn from your mistakes.
What would you score on the SHSAT right now?
The free SHSAT diagnostic shows you exactly which topics are costing you points — before you spend months studying the wrong things. Full-length test with a topic-by-topic breakdown.