BEAM's Guide to NYC High School Admissions
IMPORTANT UPDATES
This school year, the DOE is has set the high school application timeline from October 12th to December 1st, 2022 so that offers can be released by March. This timeline will give students more time to plan for the next school year. Additionally, they will release high school offers together with any Specialized High Schools results in one offer letter. Your high school offer letter will also include information about waitlists, including a list of any programs where you have been waitlisted.
How do students go to high school in NYC?
All 8th grade students who plan to attend 9th grade in a NYC public school must apply to high school. You have to fill out the application even if you are staying at your current school (if your current school is not a charter).
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Why is this process important?
Choosing where you/your student goes to high school is one of the most important decisions you will make. There are two reasons this is so important:
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High schools prepare their students for college (or fail to do so). Colleges expect students to arrive with a certain level of prior knowledge and skills. As one example, most students who major in science, engineering, math, or computer science, take calculus as their first math class. If you want to major in one of these fields and you haven’t taken calculus in high school, you will be less prepared for college math than most of your peers.
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NYC high schools vary GREATLY in how well they prepare their students for college. At some high schools, most students graduate knowing what they need to know for college. These schools offer many different advanced classes, and many students take these classes. At other schools, most students graduate UNPREPARED for college, and they don’t know what colleges expect them to know. These schools have fewer advanced courses, and fewer students at the school take the advanced classes.
What kind of choices are there?
Here’s an example of the differences between high schools. At one of BEAM’s favorite schools, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, 97% of students graduated in 4 years, ready for college. That means if they went to a CUNY school, they could start taking college level classes right away. 83% of students graduate from high school and enroll in college right away. This is a school that offers over 8 Advanced Placement (AP) courses, and 64% of students are enrolled in an AP course.
In contrast, last year we had a student rank some schools that BEAM has not vetted. They ended up at a school where only 39% of students graduate in 4 years ready for college. Only 71% of students even graduate in 4 years, ready for college or not. The selection of advanced courses, particularly in math, is much more limited, and far fewer students at the school take those courses.
Unfortunately, some school names can be misleading with clever "buzz words" (such as "Honors Track", "college readiness", "leadership academy", etc.). While the name of each school might sound competitive, they may lack the resources necessary to back up those claims. As such, students are less likely to receive the rigorous instruction needed to be college-ready. You have to really dig into the details to find out what a school is like and what they can immediately provide to your student given their goals.
BEAM is your guide through this process
BEAM has helped hundreds of students through the high school admissions process in NYC. We have gone through the entire list of over 400 high schools and found the ones that do the best job. If there’s a special program that’s really important to you, and you find it in a school that’s not on our list, please talk to us about it. There can be good reasons to choose a different school, but in general, schools that are not vetted by BEAM are not doing as good a job preparing students for college.
How does the admissions process work?
There are two parallel paths to admissions at a NYC high school:
Specialized High Schools
(only 9 schools)
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Register for SHSAT or Audition (audition for LaGuardia only)
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Take exam, and/or audition (virtual auditions also offered)
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Highest scores get an offer to a school
Standard high schools
(over 400 schools)
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Pick 12 schools to list on application. Be sure to complete any steps required by the school, such as submitting an essay, taking an exam, or registering for an interview.
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Rank schools in order of preference
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Submit application
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Schools choose their top students from those who applied. Usually, some use grades/test scores, while some choose randomly
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Get an offer to 1 school from 12, as long as all 12 are not full
Each student can follow both these pathways at the same time, or they can choose to only use the standard path. At the end of the process, students will have at most 2 offers: a specialized HS offer and a standard offer. You cannot get an offer to two standard schools at once.
Specialized high school admissions is simple - it is all based on your score on a single test, the SHSAT. Grades, attendance, state test scores, etc. do not matter at all.
Standard admissions is more complicated. There are three main ways that schools admit students:
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Screened schools admit students based on criteria that they set. The criteria vary from school to school. In a typical year, they would select students based on grades, attendance, state test scores from 7th grade, and potentially an exam, essay, and/or interview. This year, schools will admit the top-performing applicants from across each middle school and citywide. Students will be placed into groups based on their final seventh-grade core course grades, then they will be admitted in group order, starting with students in group one.
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Educational option (Ed. Opt.) schools typically admit half their students randomly, and the other half based on criteria similar to screened schools. However, they also reserve seats for students scoring at different levels on the state tests. We don’t know yet how this will be impacted by having no 7th grade state tests this year.
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Open schools admit students completely at random. Your academic record has no impact on your chance of admission to these schools.
It is possible to list 12 schools on your application, and not be admitted to any of them. In that case, the DOE places students at a school with open seats near your home address. You want to avoid being placed at a school you did not select. A well rounded list of 12 schools will include schools where admissions is very competitive, and many students apply for a few seats. But it also MUST include some schools that are less competitive, and where admission for you/your student is more likely. This usually means including Ed. Opt and/or Open schools in your list. Please talk with BEAM about your 12 choices, so we can do our best to make sure you are placed in at least one school you select.