New York City’s Specialized High Schools
There are nine. Eight admit on the SHSAT and nothing else; LaGuardia admits by audition and does not use the test at all. Below, all eight in one table — borough, DBN, how many offers each one made, the lowest score that received an offer, and what its students go on to score on the SAT.
25,933
students took the SHSAT in 2025
4,023
offers made across the eight schools
15.5%
of test takers received an offer
Source: Specialized High Schools Admissions Overall Summary, New York City Department of Education, via NYC Open Data. Series runs 2014–2025.
All eight testing schools
Read the score columns carefully. The figure New York City Public Schools publishes is the lowest score that received an offer last year — not a cutoff or a prediction. Offers are made in descending score order until the seats run out, so the last student in sets the number. It moves every year with how many children test, how they score, and how they rank the eight schools on their registration. Anyone quoting you a target for next spring is guessing.
| School | DBN | Borough | 2025 offers | Share of testers | Lowest offer, 9th | Lowest offer, 10th | Avg SAT 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stuyvesant High School | 02M475 | Manhattan | 781 | 3% | 561 | 562 | 1497 |
| High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College | 05M692 | Manhattan | 182 | 0.7% | 539 | 554 | 1464 |
| Queens High School for the Sciences at York College | 28Q687 | Queens | 148 | 0.6% | 531 | 537 | 1463 |
| The Bronx High School of Science | 10X445 | Bronx | 738 | 2.8% | 525 | 652 | 1447 |
| Staten Island Technical High School | 31R605 | Staten Island | 289 | 1.1% | 517 | 530 | 1436 |
| High School of American Studies at Lehman College | 10X696 | Bronx | 132 | 0.5% | 507 | 535 | 1405 |
| Brooklyn Technical High School | 13K430 | Brooklyn | 1,403 | 5.4% | 506 | 543 | 1405 |
| The Brooklyn Latin School | 14K449 | Brooklyn | 350 | 1.3% | 495 | 652 | 1362 |
Offers and share of testers: Specialized High Schools Admissions Overall Summary, New York City Department of Education, 2025 figures. “Share of testers” is that school’s offers divided by every student who sat the SHSAT that year — not by the students who ranked that school first, which the city does not publish.
Lowest offer, 9th and 10th: transcribed from the NYC Public Schools specialized high schools page, “Lowest Qualifying SHSAT Score for 2026 Admissions”. The city publishes two tables, one for each entry point. Read again on September 16, 2026.
Average SAT: our own NYC High School SAT Scoreboard, built from the Department of Education School Quality Reports. Click a score for that school’s full series.
The ninth school, which has no SHSAT
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts is a specialized high school, and it is the reason the count is nine rather than eight. It admits on an audition: New York City Public Schools states that LaGuardia reviews and scores each student’s audition and admits on that basis. No SHSAT score is involved, so it has no offer line in the SHSAT dataset and no row in the qualifying-score tables.
For reference, LaGuardia’s most recent average SAT score is 1195 (2024) — see the full series. It sits below the eight testing schools, which is what you would expect of a school that selects on artistic audition rather than on a mathematics and English exam.
Is Townsend Harris a specialized high school?
No. Townsend Harris High School in Flushing is a screened high school with its own admissions criteria, and it does not use the SHSAT. It is academically selective, which is why the confusion is so common, but it is not one of the nine specialized high schools named in state law.
Why one school’s number is lower than another’s
The city runs a single ordered pass. The highest scorer gets their first choice; the next highest gets theirs; this continues down the score order until a school’s seats are full, at which point the next student is considered for their second choice, then their third, and so on. A school’s published number is therefore just the score of the last student who fitted — a joint product of how many seats it has and how many children ranked it highly.
That is why Brooklyn Tech makes the most offers by a wide margin — 1,403 in 2025 — while sitting near the bottom of the score column: it is simply much larger. A smaller school with the same demand will always publish a higher number.
Two practical consequences. A student is only ever considered for schools they actually listed on their registration, so the ranking your child submits is a real decision, not a formality. And a score that would have received an offer last year is evidence about last year, nothing more — which is the whole reason we print the phrase “lowest score that received an offer last year — not a cutoff or a prediction” above the table.
Preparing for a particular school
The exam is the same for all eight, so there is no school-specific syllabus to study. What differs is the margin you are working against. These are the schools families ask us about most:
Stuyvesant prep
Manhattan · 781 offers in 2025 · lowest offer 561 in 9th grade
Bronx Science prep
Bronx · 738 offers in 2025 · lowest offer 525 in 9th grade
Staten Island Tech prep
Staten Island · 289 offers in 2025 · lowest offer 517 in 9th grade
Brooklyn Tech prep
Brooklyn · 1,403 offers in 2025 · lowest offer 506 in 9th grade
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Questions families ask
How many specialized high schools are there in NYC?
Nine. Eight of them admit students on the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) and nothing else, and the ninth — Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts — admits by audition and does not use the SHSAT. New York City Public Schools states plainly that for the eight testing schools, "the SHSAT is the only criteria used to admit students; no other criteria are used."
What are the 8 testing specialized high schools?
Stuyvesant High School (02M475, Manhattan); High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College (05M692, Manhattan); Queens High School for the Sciences at York College (28Q687, Queens); The Bronx High School of Science (10X445, Bronx); Staten Island Technical High School (31R605, Staten Island); High School of American Studies at Lehman College (10X696, Bronx); Brooklyn Technical High School (13K430, Brooklyn); The Brooklyn Latin School (14K449, Brooklyn).
Is Townsend Harris a specialized high school?
No. Townsend Harris High School in Flushing is a screened high school with its own admissions criteria, and it does not use the SHSAT. It is frequently and understandably confused with the specialized high schools because it is academically selective, but it is not one of the nine. The list of nine is fixed by New York State law and Townsend Harris is not on it.
What was the lowest qualifying SHSAT score for 2026 admissions?
For 9th grade entry it ranged from 495 at Brooklyn Latin to 561 at Stuyvesant. Read that number for what New York City Public Schools says it is: the lowest score that received an offer last year — not a cutoff or a prediction. It describes a year that is already finished. The number moves every year with how many students test, how they score, and how they rank the schools, so nobody — including us — can tell you what it will be next spring.
Do the specialized high schools admit students in 10th grade?
Yes, in small numbers, and New York City Public Schools publishes a separate table of lowest qualifying scores for 10th grade entry. Those scores sit well above the 9th grade ones at every school, because far fewer seats open up. The eligibility rule is that a student must be a New York City resident in 8th grade, or in 9th grade for the first time.
How many students get an offer?
In 2025, 25,933 students took the SHSAT and 4,023 received an offer to one of the eight testing schools — 15.5% of test takers. Brooklyn Tech alone accounts for 1,403 of them, more than the four smallest schools put together.
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