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Admission Methods

How NYC schools admit

8 methods · 1,689 middle and high school programs

Eight admission methods govern NYC middle- and high-school seats. Some are test-only, some look at grades, some run a random lottery, some go by where you live. Each section below explains the method in plain English and lists the public and charter schools that use it. Private schools admit on their own terms and are not included here.

Grade band
Governance

SHSAT

14 programs

Test-only admission. Offers go in descending order of SHSAT score combined with the student's school-preference list.

Eight testing Specialized High Schools — Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Brooklyn Latin, Staten Island Tech, Queens HSSE, HSAS at Lehman, and HSMSE at CCNY. Registration runs September → October of 8th grade through the school's counselor; the test is sat in late October. Each student ranks all eight schools by preference; the city matches in March in strict descending score order until each school fills. No grades, attendance, audition, sibling, or geographic preference is considered. Free Department of Education prep is offered through the DREAM program. Students may also rank LaGuardia (audition-based) on the same registration form, but it admits by audition, not score.

Audition

127 programs

Performance- or portfolio-based. Students must audition or submit a portfolio in a specific art form to be eligible.

About two dozen high schools admit by audition or portfolio in dance, drama, instrumental music, vocal music, technical theater, fine arts, or filmmaking. LaGuardia is the best known; others include Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, Talent Unlimited, Repertory Company, Brooklyn HS of the Arts, and Manhattan Theater Lab. Students apply through the High School Application AND complete each school's audition (often a recorded pre-screen plus a live callback). Every studio is judged by faculty on its own rubric — academic record is not a factor — but applicants must still meet baseline minimum grades and attendance to qualify.

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Screened

425 programs

Ranks applicants by 7th-grade core-course grade average. Offers go to top groups first.

Most academically selective programs use the screened method. The city averages each applicant's final 7th-grade English, Math, Science, and Social Studies grades and sorts them into ordered groups (Group 1 highest). Offers are made group-by-group: every Group 1 applicant is considered before any Group 2 applicant, and so on, with random tiebreaks inside each group. A few schools add an entrance assessment, writing sample, or interview on top. Some programs apply a borough or district priority — in-borough applicants are placed before out-of-borough applicants of the same group.

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Ed. Opt.

339 programs

Educational Option. Three reading-level bands fill in equal shares, with mixed selection plus random lottery.

Educational Option programs target a balanced cohort: one-third applicants reading above grade level, one-third on level, one-third below. Within each band, half the seats are filled by the school's own ranked selection and half by random lottery — so a strong applicant in any reading band has a real shot. Ed-Opt is rarer than it once was and survives at a handful of high schools (e.g. Murry Bergtraum, A. Philip Randolph). Students who attend a school-listed information event sometimes earn a priority bump inside their band.

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Limited Unscreened

54 programs

Random selection with priority for students who attend an information session, open house, or sign-in event.

Limited Unscreened programs admit randomly but give priority to students who demonstrated interest before the deadline — by attending an open house, joining a virtual information session, or signing in at the school's tour. No grades, scores, or zone considered; only the priority flag plus the random tiebreak. Most arts, technology, and humanities programs that aren't audition-based use this method. Many programs also have a continuing-8th-grader priority (already at the same school's middle school) that ranks above the open-house bump.

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Unscreened

330 programs

Pure random selection. Every applicant is considered equally regardless of grades, scores, or address.

Unscreened programs admit by random tiebreak alone — every applicant gets one number and seats fill in number order. No academic record, attendance, audition, open-house attendance, borough, or zone is considered. The most common admission method by school count, and the easiest to apply to: rank it on the High School Application by the December deadline and you're in the pool.

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Zoned

172 programs

Geographic priority. Students who live in the school's catchment zone apply through the zoned process.

Zoned programs serve a fixed geographic catchment. At elementary level, in-zone students get a guaranteed seat. At middle-school level (a minority of districts — most CSDs run district-wide choice instead), in-zone students get priority over out-of-zone but no guarantee, and out-of-zone students are admitted only after every in-zone applicant is seated. Zone boundaries are set by the DOE and shown on each school's profile. A child currently attending a feeder elementary often has a separate sibling-or-feeder priority on top of the geographic one.

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Charter Lottery

228 programs

Random lottery with sibling preference and Community School District priority by state law.

Charter schools admit by random lottery, governed by NY State Education Law §2854. Two preferences are mandatory: siblings of currently enrolled students go first, then applicants residing in the charter's local Community School District. Networks may add weighted preferences for low-income, English-learner, or students-with-disabilities applicants — these expand access without removing the random draw. Up to 15% of seats may be reserved for children of school staff. Each charter sets its own application portal (most use SchoolMint or a network-owned form, separate from the DOE High School Application) and its own lottery date — usually April. No grades, scores, attendance, or audition is considered.

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Sourced from the NYC DOE High School and Middle School Directories (NYC Open Data datasets ge8j-uqbf, f6s7-vytj, 23z9-6uk9) and the published Specialized High Schools list. Methods change cycle to cycle — always confirm with the school before you apply. Looking for a specific school? Search the full directory at /schools.