The 8 NYC Specialized High Schools: A Guide

What makes a school "specialized"?

Eight of New York City's specialized high schools admit students on one criterion and one criterion only: your child's score on the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT). No grades, no essays, no interviews, no attendance record — just the test. That single-number approach is what "specialized" means here, and it's why so much rides on one Saturday morning.

The 8 Schools is an independent SHSAT practice site. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by the NYC Department of Education, and we are not connected to any of the schools below. Our job is to help your child walk in prepared. For official rules, exact dates, and the application itself, always confirm with the NYC DOE and MySchools — treat this page as background, not the last word.

The eight schools at a glance

Here are the eight schools, their borough, their academic focus, and the widely-reported 2026 composite cutoff (out of 700), highest to lowest. A higher cutoff generally signals more competition for seats.

A note on those numbers: the DOE does not publish official cutoffs. These are widely-reported reference figures, and they shift every year with the size and strength of the applicant pool and with how students rank the schools. Treat them as a rough guide, never as a prediction or a guarantee of admission. See our SHSAT cutoff scores guide for more on how to read them.

A closer look

The eight schools share the same admissions test but feel very different day to day. Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Technical are the large, well-known STEM powerhouses — Brooklyn Tech is the biggest of all and lets students choose a major. HSMSE, Queens HS for the Sciences, and HS of American Studies are small schools, so the culture is more intimate. The Brooklyn Latin School is the outlier in focus: a classical liberal-arts program built around Latin and the International Baccalaureate rather than engineering. Focus matters — a child who loves history and writing may thrive at American Studies or Brooklyn Latin even if a STEM school has a flashier name.

When your child fills out the application, they rank the schools in order of preference. One SHSAT score is matched against every school they list, so it's worth ranking honestly by fit, not just by reputation. You can read more about the schools and the process in our overview and on SHSAT format and scoring.

What about LaGuardia?

You'll sometimes hear LaGuardia High School grouped with the specialized schools. It is a specialized school, but it does not use the SHSAT. LaGuardia admits students by audition or portfolio in the arts (music, dance, drama, visual art, and technical theater). If your child is aiming for LaGuardia, the SHSAT isn't the path — check LaGuardia's own audition requirements through MySchools. Every other school on this page comes down to the test.

How cutoffs connect to prep

Here's the practical takeaway. Because admission is a single score matched against your ranked list, prep isn't about "passing" — it's about earning as many points as possible so more of your ranked schools come into reach. A child a few points below Stuyvesant's reported cutoff might still land a strong offer from Staten Island Tech or Brooklyn Latin. Every question answered correctly widens the door.

That's where steady, honest practice pays off. Learn what the exam actually looks like in SHSAT format and scoring, build a plan in how to prepare for the SHSAT, and check the timing in SHSAT test dates so registration doesn't sneak up on you. Confirm the official calendar with the NYC DOE — dates move, and you don't want to find out late.

Frequently asked questions