Specialized High Schools Admissions Test
The SHSAT, in plain answers
Taken by NYC 8th graders, and first-time 9th graders, applying to the testing Specialized High Schools. Here's what matters for the 2026–27 admissions season, with a link to the official source for every fact.
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Questions parents ask
Can 9th graders take the SHSAT? The 10th-grade routeYes: NYC residents in 9th grade for the first time can take the SHSAT and compete for a small number of 10th-grade seats at the Specialized High…Does LaGuardia High School use the SHSAT?No: LaGuardia High School admits students by audition, not the SHSAT, and requires a final grade of at least 65 in English, math, science and…How SHSAT offers work: score order and school choicesSHSAT offers are made in score order. The highest scorer gets their first-choice school, the next gets their highest choice that still has seats,…SHSAT accommodations: extended time, ELL support and paper testsEnglish Language Learners, eligible former ELLs and students with extended-time IEP or 504 accommodations get 360 minutes on the SHSAT, double the…What is the SHSAT Discovery program? Who qualifiesDiscovery is a summer program that lets some disadvantaged students who scored just below the SHSAT cutoffs attend a Specialized High School.…What's on the SHSAT? ELA and math topicsThe SHSAT has two sections of 50 questions each. English Language Arts covers Revising/Editing and Reading Comprehension; Math covers ratios and…Where to find official SHSAT practice testsThe official SHSAT practice tests are on the NYC SHSAT Portal, which has four full-length online practice tests that match the real exam and a…Which admissions tests penalize wrong answers?The Middle and Upper Level SSAT take off a quarter point for each wrong answer. The TACHS, HSPT, ISEE and Elementary SSAT have no penalty, and the…
More SHSAT guides
These are covered in depth by our sister site for families, Simple Tree:
Key facts
| Who takes it | Any NYC resident in 8th grade, or in 9th grade for the first time, who wants a testing Specialized High School must take the SHSAT, including private, parochial, and charter school students. |
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| Format | The fall 2026 SHSAT has two sections, English Language Arts and Math, with 50 questions in each (100 total), and every student answers the same number of questions. |
| Adaptive? | Starting in fall 2026, the SHSAT is a computer-adaptive test: question difficulty adjusts up or down based on the student's answers. |
| Time | The standard SHSAT testing time is 180 minutes (3 hours) for both sections together, and students choose which section to start with. |
| Scoring | Each SHSAT section's performance score is converted to a scaled score, and the ELA and Math scaled scores are added together to make the composite score used to rank students. |
| Skipping questions | Every question must be answered before moving on, so no SHSAT question can be left blank on the computer-adaptive test. |