SHSAT Test Dates 2026 — register October 6–30, test November 18

The SHSAT School Day is Wednesday, November 18, 2026, for all NYC public school students in middle schools that terminate in the eighth grade — they test at their own school during the school day. The DOE has also published the weekend administration — Saturday/Sunday, November 14/15, with a last weekend test date on Saturday, November 21 — for students at charter schools, private and parochial schools and homeschooled students. The weekend testing sites are still to be announced later this fall.

On a weekend date rather than the November 18 School Day, at a central NYC Public Schools testing site. The DOE has published the weekend administration — Saturday/Sunday, November 14/15, 2026, with a last weekend test date on Saturday, November 21 — but not yet the weekend sites, which it says will come later this fall. What you can do now is register during the October 6–30 window, which is the same for every student regardless of school type, and watch both this page and MySchools. Your child’s test ticket, available roughly two weeks after registration closes, is what will confirm their exact date and location.

The DOE page lists the School Day (November 18) and the weekend administration (November 14/15, last weekend date November 21) without saying which of them applies to first-time ninth graders applying for tenth-grade entry. The test ticket, available about two weeks after registration closes, is what confirms it. Note also that tenth-grade entry is far more competitive: the lowest qualifying scores for tenth-grade seats in 2026 admissions ran well above the ninth-grade figures at several schools, reaching 652 at both Bronx Science and Brooklyn Latin, against 525 and 495 for ninth-grade entry.

The DOE has not announced a results date for the Fall 2026 administration. As a planning reference, results from the Fall 2025 administration were released in MySchools on March 5, 2026, so early March is a reasonable expectation — but treat it as an assumption rather than a published date. Results include your child’s score and up to one offer to a testing Specialized High School.

There is no published target. The cutoff is whatever the lowest admitted score turns out to be that year, and it moves with the size and strength of the applicant pool. The last published figures, for 2026 ninth-grade admissions, were 561 at Stuyvesant, 539 at HSMSE at City College, 531 at Queens Sciences at York, 525 at Bronx Science, 517 at Staten Island Tech, 507 at American Studies at Lehman, 506 at Brooklyn Tech and 495 at Brooklyn Latin. Use them to calibrate, never as a guarantee for 2027.

Earlier than most families expect. If your child has a 504 Plan, or attends a charter or non-public school with a similar school-based accommodation plan, all documentation must reach the DOE for review at least three weeks before the registration deadline — so on or before October 9, 2026 for this cycle. Documentation received later may not be reviewed in time for your child’s test date. Approved accommodations appear on the test ticket. For students with IEPs or 504 Plans, existing accommodations carry over; work through your school counselor, not directly with the schools.

Standard administration time is 180 minutes, with 50 questions in English Language Arts and 50 in Mathematics — the same count for every student. There is no imposed split of the three hours between the two sections, and your child chooses which section to begin with. Beginning with this Fall 2026 administration the SHSAT is computer-adaptive: the system re-estimates a score after every response and adjusts the difficulty of what comes next, while every student still answers the same number of questions on the same standards. One practical consequence matters more than the rest: a question must be answered before your child can advance, and in Math, and on stand-alone ELA items, they cannot go back to it.

On a computer, on machines the DOE provides, either at your child’s own school on the November 18 School Day or at a designated weekend testing site. Students may not use their own computers. Paper is reserved for the very small number of students whose IEP or 504 Plan carries an approved accommodation that requires it; otherwise the DOE says every exam is administered on computer without exception, with accommodations delivered in or alongside the digital platform. English Language Learners and eligible former ELLs receive double time — 360 minutes — with two 15-minute breaks built in after the first 180. The DOE has also said it will publish a digital readiness activity later this fall so that public middle school students can practise on the testing platform before the day.