By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Staten Island Tech ’02 · Founding President, SI Tech Alumni Association · Tutoring since 2008 — Published September 1, 2026
Students who are in 9th grade can take the SHSAT for a chance to enter a specialized high school as a sophomore. Most of them took the test in 8th grade and did not receive an offer, and a smaller number moved to New York City after 8th grade. Across the last five years, the eight schools together offered between 76 and 137 sophomore seats per year, and approximately 3,000 students competed for them.
Table of Contents
How Many Seats Are Available in 9th Grade?
Far fewer than in 8th grade, and the number changes a lot from year to year.
The table below shows the sophomore seats each specialized high school offered to students who took the SHSAT in 9th grade.
| School | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooklyn Technical High School | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 34 | 23 |
| Stuyvesant High School | 35 | 25 | 25 | 15 | 7 | 21 |
| Staten Island Technical High School | 4 | 17 | 20 | 25 | 22 | 18 |
| The Bronx High School of Science | 33 | 0 | 24 | 1 | 25 | 17 |
| The Brooklyn Latin School | 25 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 13 |
| Queens High School for the Sciences at York College | 8 | 11 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| High School for Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at City College | 3 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 6 |
| High School of American Studies at Lehman College | 9 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Total | 137 | 109 | 106 | 76 | 111 | 108 |
Three things stand out.
The totals swing. Across these five years the total ranged from 76 seats to 137. A student cannot plan around an average, because the year he takes the test may be a low one.
Individual schools swing much harder. The Bronx High School of Science offered 25 seats in 2021, then 1, then 24, then 0, then 33. Staten Island Technical High School has gone the other direction, from 22 down to 4. A school that had seats last year may have almost none this year.
Two schools can offer nothing at all. Bronx Science offered zero sophomore seats in 2024, and the High School of American Studies at Lehman College offered zero in 2022. When a school offers no seats, there is no cut-off score for it that year.
For comparison, the same eight schools offer approximately 3,700 seats to incoming 9th graders. Approximately a tenth as many students take the SHSAT in 9th grade as take it in 8th grade, and they are competing for approximately a thirtieth as many seats.
9th Grade SHSAT Cut-Off Scores by School
There is no passing score on the SHSAT. Students are ranked by composite score and offers are made in rank order, so a school’s cut-off is whatever the lowest accepted score turned out to be that year.
| School | 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stuyvesant High School | 562 | 562 | 572 | 575 | 591 | 590 | 575 |
| The Bronx High School of Science | 652 | 525 | N/A | 530 | 612 | 508 | 565 |
| Brooklyn Technical High School | 543 | 537 | 543 | 553 | 546 | 494 | 536 |
| High School for Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at City College | 554 | 556 | 523 | 540 | 547 | 481 | 534 |
| Staten Island Technical High School | 530 | 572 | 524 | 522 | 524 | 481 | 526 |
| The Brooklyn Latin School | 652 | 484 | 490 | 521 | 530 | 461 | 523 |
| Queens High School for the Sciences at York College | 537 | 520 | 523 | 544 | 545 | 459 | 521 |
| High School of American Studies at Lehman College | 535 | 485 | 510 | 518 | N/A | 495 | 509 |
The N/A entries are the two years a school offered no sophomore seats. No seats means no cut-off.
Why the Cut-Off Score Follows the Seat Count
The two tables explain each other. Look at Stuyvesant across the five years where we have both numbers.
| Year | Seats | Cut-Off |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 7 | 590 |
| 2022 | 15 | 591 |
| 2023 | 25 | 575 |
| 2024 | 25 | 572 |
| 2025 | 35 | 562 |
As the seats went up, the cut-off came down. That is what should happen. Offers are made in rank order until the seats run out, so more seats means going further down the ranked list, which means a lower last accepted score.
This is worth understanding before a student picks his target score. A cut-off is not a standard the school sets. It is the result of how many seats opened that year and how the students who tested that day happened to score.
Why the Cut-Off Score Follows the Seat Count
The two tables explain each other. Look at Stuyvesant across the five years where we have both numbers.
| Year | Seats | Cut-Off |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 7 | 590 |
| 2022 | 15 | 591 |
| 2023 | 25 | 575 |
| 2024 | 25 | 572 |
| 2025 | 35 | 562 |
As the seats went up, the cut-off came down. That is what should happen. Offers are made in rank order until the seats run out, so more seats means going further down the ranked list, which means a lower last accepted score.
This is worth understanding before a student picks his target score. A cut-off is not a standard the school sets. It is the result of how many seats opened that year and how the students who tested that day happened to score.
What Score Should a 9th Grader Aim For?
Aim above the multi-year average for the school, not at last year’s number.
Students sometimes assume the 9th grade cut-off will be higher than the 8th grade cut-off for the same school. It is normally close, and in some years it has been lower. But the comparison is not the right way to set a target.
The reason is risk. A student taking the SHSAT in 9th grade has no third attempt. If the score falls short, that is the end of the process. And the seat count is the least predictable part of the whole system. Bronx Science offered 25 sophomore seats one year and zero three years later. A student who targeted the previous year’s cut-off at a school that then offered no seats had no path at all.
So the target should carry a margin. Take the school’s average across the last several years, and aim above it. A student who ends up scoring more than he needed has lost nothing. A student who aimed at last year’s number in a year with fewer seats has lost his last chance.
Who Can Take the SHSAT in 9th Grade?
Students can take the SHSAT in 9th grade if they are New York City residents and are taking the test for the first time in 9th grade.
Two groups of students take it. The larger group took the test in 8th grade and did not receive an offer. The smaller group moved to New York City after 8th grade and never had the chance.
Keep in mind that this is a student’s last opportunity. There is no 10th grade administration of the SHSAT. A student who does not receive an offer after the 9th grade test cannot take it again.
When is the 9th Grade SHSAT?
The 9th grade SHSAT is given on a weekend, normally at the beginning of December. That is later than both 8th grade administrations, which are held in late October for public school students and mid-November for private, parochial, and charter school students.
There is no fee. See the current SHSAT test dates and registration deadlines.
How the 9th Grade SHSAT Differs From the 8th Grade Test
The format is the same. The content is harder.
Students see the same two subjects, English Language Arts and Mathematics, and the same question types. What changes is the difficulty, which makes sense given that students have completed another year of school since the 8th grade test.
Beginning in fall 2026, the SHSAT is a computer-adaptive test. The system re-estimates a student’s score after every answer and uses that estimate to choose the next question, which means a student cannot go back and change an answer. More on how the SHSAT adapts.
What Math Is Added on the 9th Grade SHSAT
Students should expect every type of question that appears on the 8th grade test, plus questions from these topics.
- Advanced algebra
- Word problems
- Graphing functions
- Slopes of linear functions
- Transformations
- 3-D geometry
- Basic trigonometry
Most of the math section still covers 8th grade material. The added topics account for a minority of the questions, which is why the fastest preparation is to master the 8th grade math first and then work through the additions.
How the ELA Section Differs
The question types are the same. Students see Revising and Editing questions and Reading Comprehension questions, in the same proportion as the 8th grade test.
The passages are the difference. They are longer, they use more complex sentence structure, and they assume a higher vocabulary.
For that reason, students preparing for the 9th grade test need practice with longer and denser passages than the 8th grade test used.
We used to recommend practicing with SAT reading passages for this. That advice applied to the paper SAT, which was given from March 2016 through January 2024 and used long passages with several questions each. The Digital SAT replaced it with short passages carrying one question each, so it no longer serves the same purpose.
Practice tests from the paper SAT are still available and still work for this. So do ACT reading passages, which remain long. The goal is time spent reading complex text at a higher level, not practice with the questions themselves, since SAT and ACT reading questions are different from SHSAT questions.
How Should a Student Prepare for the 9th Grade SHSAT?
Nearly every student taking this test has already taken it once and did not get in. Something has to be different this time, and there is no third attempt.
That changes what preparation should look like. A student who studies the same way he studied last year should expect a similar result.
Start by Finding the Topics With the Most Room for Improvement
Contrary to popular belief, maximizing a test score does not mean working on the weakest topics. It means working on the topics with the greatest room for improvement.
Those aren’t the same thing. A student may be weak in a topic that appears on one question. Working on it for a month gains him one question. Another topic he is only slightly weak in may appear on eight questions, and closing that smaller gap gains him more.
This matters more for a repeat test-taker than for anyone else. A student taking the SHSAT for the second time already knows he has gaps. What he normally doesn’t know is which gaps are worth closing.
Take a free diagnostic SHSAT to find out. The assessment shows which topics are costing the most points, and that list is what a study plan should be built around.
There Are No Official 9th Grade Practice Tests
The Specialized High Schools Student Handbook published by the DOE contains two full practice tests for the 8th grade SHSAT. It does not contain a single 9th grade practice test. It includes sample questions for the added topics, and that is all.
That leaves students with one practical approach. Work the 8th grade practice tests until the shared material is mastered, since most of the test is shared. Then work the added topics separately, using practice sets rather than full tests.
Prep Options for the 9th Grade SHSAT
Tutoring is normally the best fit for this test. Most students taking the SHSAT in 9th grade need specific gaps closed rather than full coverage of the material, and SHSAT tutoring lets a student spend the time on exactly those topics.
Most tutoring centers do not offer a class specifically for the 9th grade SHSAT, and neither do we. There aren’t enough students to fill one. A student can take the 8th grade class and add tutoring sessions to cover the advanced topics, which works well.
Our on-demand SHSAT course includes the supplemental 9th grade math topics, so it works as a stand-alone option for students who want to prepare at their own pace. See all SHSAT prep options to compare them.
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.
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