SHSAT score calculator: which schools did that score reach?
Type in a composite score and this places it against all eight testing specialized high schools at once — against the lowest score that actually received an offer at each of them for 2026 admissions, with the gap in points either way. The figures are the Department of Education’s own, for 9th and for 10th grade entry. Nothing is estimated: where the DOE publishes no number, this tool says so rather than inventing one.
Check a scoreThe composite score as it appears on the score report — the two scaled section scores added together. It cannot be worked out from a number of correct answers, and this tool does not try.
Almost every candidate enters in 9th grade. The 10th-grade round fills a much smaller number of places, and the DOE publishes it as a separate table.
Lowest qualifying score, 9th grade, 2026 admissions
Highest first. Enter a score to place it in this order.
Stuyvesant
Manhattan · 781 offers in 2025 (3% of all test takers)
561
HSMSE at City College
Manhattan · 182 offers in 2025 (0.7% of all test takers)
539
Queens Sciences at York
Queens · 148 offers in 2025 (0.6% of all test takers)
531
Bronx Science
Bronx · 738 offers in 2025 (2.8% of all test takers)
525
Staten Island Tech
Staten Island · 289 offers in 2025 (1.1% of all test takers)
517
American Studies at Lehman
Bronx · 132 offers in 2025 (0.5% of all test takers)
507
Brooklyn Tech
Brooklyn · 1,403 offers in 2025 (5.4% of all test takers)
506
Brooklyn Latin
Brooklyn · 350 offers in 2025 (1.3% of all test takers)
495
Stuyvesant High School
Manhattan · DBN 02M475
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 561
- Offers made in 2025
- 781
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1497
High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College
Manhattan · DBN 05M692
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 539
- Offers made in 2025
- 182
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1464
Queens High School for the Sciences at York College
Queens · DBN 28Q687
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 531
- Offers made in 2025
- 148
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1463
The Bronx High School of Science
Bronx · DBN 10X445
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 525
- Offers made in 2025
- 738
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1447
Staten Island Technical High School
Staten Island · DBN 31R605
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 517
- Offers made in 2025
- 289
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1436
High School of American Studies at Lehman College
Bronx · DBN 10X696
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 507
- Offers made in 2025
- 132
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1405
Brooklyn Technical High School
Brooklyn · DBN 13K430
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 506
- Offers made in 2025
- 1,403
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1405
The Brooklyn Latin School
Brooklyn · DBN 14K449
- Lowest qualifying score (9th grade)
- 495
- Offers made in 2025
- 350
- Average SAT (2024)
- 1362
How many offers there were to go round, in 2025
25,933
students took the SHSAT
4,023
offers were made across the eight schools
15.5%
of test takers received one
Offer counts from Specialized High Schools Admissions Overall Summary, published by the New York City Department of Education. Qualifying scores transcribed from the New York City Public Schools enrollment page, read in full on September 16, 2026. Nothing on this page is interpolated or projected.
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We will reply with what the score means for a ranking strategy, and what the gap to the next school up would actually take. No obligation.
There is no cutoff score. There is an order.
Families ask what score their child needs, and every honest answer has to start by refusing the question. Nobody publishes a required score, because nobody sets one. Every candidate is placed in order of composite score. Going down that order, each student is given the highest school on their own ranked list that still has places. When a school runs out of places, it stops appearing. The lowest score that happened to receive an offer at each school is then published afterwards.
Two consequences, and they are the ones worth planning around. The first: the number moves with the candidates. A stronger field or fewer places pushes it up; a weaker field pushes it down. Reading last year’s figure as a target is reading a thermometer as a thermostat. The second: your ranking order genuinely matters. A score above Brooklyn Latin’s 2026 figure of 495 and below Stuyvesant’s 561 reaches some schools and not others, and which offer arrives depends on the order the schools were listed in.
That is why this tool shows all eight at once rather than a yes or a no. The useful output is not a verdict. It is the shape of the list: which schools sit below the score, which sit above it, and by how much.
Questions families actually ask
Is there an official SHSAT cutoff score?
No, and that is the single most misread thing about this exam. No score is set in advance. Offers are made in score order against the schools each student ranked, until a school's places are filled. What the New York City Department of Education publishes afterwards is the lowest score that received an offer at each school — a record of what happened that year, not a bar announced beforehand. The numbers on this page are those published figures for 2026 admissions.
Does clearing last year’s number mean my child gets in?
No. It means a student with that score received an offer at that school in that year. The following year has a different set of candidates and a different set of rankings, and the lowest qualifying score moves with them, in either direction. Treat it as the best available reference point and nothing stronger.
Can this calculator turn practice-test raw scores into a composite?
No, and no honest tool can. The exam is adaptive: each item carries its own difficulty and the section scores come from the pattern of responses against those difficulties, not from a count of correct answers. Those two scaled section scores are then added into the composite. Any chart claiming to turn a number of correct answers into a composite is guessing. Enter the composite from the score report instead.
Why is the 10th-grade table so different?
The Department of Education publishes 9th-grade and 10th-grade entry as two separate tables, and this tool keeps them separate. The 10th-grade round fills a far smaller number of places, and its published figures behave accordingly — at two schools the 2026 10th-grade figure is well over a hundred points above the 9th-grade one. Switch the entry grade above and the whole ladder changes.
Which specialized high schools are not on this list?
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts is a specialized high school, but it admits by audition and does not use the SHSAT at all, so it has no qualifying score and is not on this page. The eight schools shown here are the ones that admit on the test alone.
How current are these numbers?
The qualifying scores are the 2026 admissions figures, transcribed from the New York City Public Schools enrollment page and read in full on September 16, 2026. The offer counts are the 2025 figures from NYC Open Data. Nothing here is interpolated, averaged or carried over from another year.
The eight schools side by side, with what their students go on to score on the SAT, are on the specialized high schools page. The registration window and the testing dates are on SHSAT test dates, what the exam looks like since it went adaptive is on the format page, and the rest of the free tools are on the tools hub.