Not grades. Not attendance. Not a personal statement. One test, given once, in the fall of eighth grade.
The SHSAT is the only thing that decides admission to eight of New York City’s nine Specialized High Schools. Last year the cut-off scores ranged from 495 at The Brooklyn Latin School to 561 at Stuyvesant, a spread of 66 points.
This page covers which schools use the SHSAT, what score you need, what the test looks like now that it’s adaptive, when it’s given, and how to prepare. Each section links to a more detailed guide.
Table of Contents
Which Specialized High Schools Use the SHSAT?
Eight schools admit students based on the SHSAT and nothing else. They’re listed below in alphabetical order.
- The Bronx High School of Science
- The Brooklyn Latin School
- Brooklyn Technical High School
- High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College
- High School of American Studies at Lehman College
- Queens High School for the Sciences at York College
- Staten Island Technical High School
- Stuyvesant High School
There is a ninth specialized high school, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. LaGuardia does not use the SHSAT. Admission there is based on an audition or a portfolio, so students applying to LaGuardia and to the other eight need to prepare for both processes.
The eight schools are different sizes, in different boroughs, and known for different things. A student ranks them in order of preference when he registers, and that order matters for how offers are made. More on the 8 NYC specialized high schools, including each school’s cut-off score, size, and what it’s known for.
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.
Here’s how it works. Every student who takes the test gets a composite score. The system goes down the ranked list, starting with the highest score, and gives each student a seat at the highest school on his preference list that still has room. When a school fills up, no more offers go out for it.
That means the cut-off score for a school isn’t set in advance. It’s whatever the lowest accepted score turned out to be that year, and it moves depending on how many students took the test and how they ranked their choices.
Last year the range ran from 495 at The Brooklyn Latin School to 561 at Stuyvesant. See the full list of SHSAT cut-off scores by school and year to see how the numbers have moved.
Keep in mind how competitive this is. In 2024, 25,678 students took the SHSAT and approximately 15.9% received an offer. Approximately 5 out of every 6 students who take the SHSAT are not accepted.
The 2026 SHSAT Is Adaptive
Beginning in fall 2026, the SHSAT is a computer-adaptive test. The testing system re-estimates a student’s score after every answer and uses that estimate to choose the next question.
The practical change is that a student cannot go back. Once an answer is submitted, the next question appears, and there’s no returning to the previous one. Every student still answers 50 questions per subject, or 100 in total, on the same material.
This matters for preparation. Students used to be taught to skip a hard question and come back to it with the time left over. That strategy no longer applies. Every prep book written before this year describes a different test.
More on how the SHSAT adapts, what stays the same for every student, and how it differs from the Digital SAT.
When Is the SHSAT?
The SHSAT is given in the fall, and the date depends on where a student goes to school.
- Public school students take it during a school day in late October.
- Private, parochial, and charter school students take it on a weekend in mid-November.
- First-time ninth grade test takers take it in early December.
There is no fee. The SHSAT is free to take.
Registration goes through MySchools, and students rank the schools they want in order of preference at the same time. See the current SHSAT test dates and registration deadlines.
How Do You Prepare for the SHSAT?
Most students who get in prepared for months. Some prepared for a year or more.
There are four common paths. Students can study on their own with practice tests and review books. They can use the DOE’s free DREAM program, which offers SHSAT preparation to eligible students. They can take a prep class. Or they can work with a tutor.
Which one fits depends on how far a student is from the cut-off score he’s aiming for and how much work he can do without someone keeping him on schedule.
Whichever path a student takes, the first step is finding out where he actually stands. A free diagnostic SHSAT gives a student a score and shows which topics are costing him the most points. From there, see all of our SHSAT prep options to compare classes, tutoring, and our on-demand course.
What Should Families Know Before Starting SHSAT Prep?
The SHSAT is one test on one day, and the score is the only thing the eight schools look at. Everything that determines that score happens in the months before.
The decisions that matter are made early. When to start, which schools to rank and in what order, and where a student is actually losing points. The rest of this page covers the first and third of those.
When Should a Student Start Preparing?
Most students start the summer before eighth grade. That gives approximately four months before the October test date.
Some students start years in advance and some spend a month. To figure out how much time you need, have the student take a practice test and compare the score to the cut-off scores for the schools he’s aiming for. The gap between those two numbers tells you how much work is ahead.
Taking the SHSAT in Ninth Grade
Students can also take the SHSAT in ninth grade for admission as a sophomore. This is a separate test date, normally in early December, and there are far fewer seats available than in the eighth grade round.
It’s a real option for students who missed the cut-off the first time or who moved to New York City after eighth grade. More on taking the SHSAT in 9th grade.
Why Caddell Prep for the SHSAT
I graduated from Staten Island Technical High School, one of the eight schools this test admits to, and I’m the founding president of its alumni association. I spoke to students and parents at IS24 in Staten Island and IS 187 in Brooklyn about the SHSAT and the specialized high schools admissions process, and always make myself available to speak to students.
Our SHSAT students who scored over 60% on their first diagnostic test have been accepted to specialized high schools 78% of the time. Based on previous classes, a student normally needs over 80% for Brooklyn Tech or Staten Island Tech, and approximately 90% for Stuyvesant.
See our SHSAT prep classes, or read more about Staten Island Technical High School and what it takes to get in.
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.