Eighth graders who want to get into some of New York City’s most competitive high schools must accomplish one thing: ace the test offered this weekend. It's called the SHSAT and it is the sole determinant of who will get into the eight specialized high schools which include Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science, Staten Island Tech and Brooklyn Tech.
Divided into math and reading sections, the test includes material not taught in school. Savvy families seek out test-prep classes, sometimes years ahead of time, to get familiar with material. Not surprisingly, their children have a huge advantage when taking the SHSAT.
Half of the students admitted each year are Asian, a group that seem especially attuned to test-prep. By contrast, just 12 percent of the students admitted last year were black and Hispanic. Mayor Bill de Blasio said he believes diversity would improve at the specialized schools if they relied on more than this single test to determine admissions. But with no changes under serious review by the state legislature, and continued arguments about the pros and cons of other criteria such as student grades, the test remains paramount.
WNYC spent the summer and fall talking with students across the city, many of whom hope to attend a specialized high school. We wanted to know who prepared for the test and how. Now that the high school application season is about halfway through, with the deadline on Dec. 1, we've created five short vignettes about the pressure city students face to get into a good school.
The Test Prep Kids
The specialized high schools test is even more important than the SAT for some kids. They believe where they go to high school will determine their chances of getting into a good college.
"I wanted to be like really, really prepared for this test," said Julia Pepper, who we met at an A+ Academy class near Sunset Park.
Julia and her classmates had just finished seventh grade. At that point, they'd already been going to tutoring classes after school and on weekends and were spending their summer taking daily classes so they'd be ready in October.
Scholarships, Anyone?
Test prep companies can be found all over Brooklyn and Queens, many of them run by families from East and South Asia. They cater to immigrant communities who see the specialized high schools as a ticket to a better life.
Ivan Khan, a graduate of Bronx Science and founder of Khan's Tutorial, said he wanted the specialized schools to be more representative of the city. To that end, he offered free scholarships over the past two years but he claimed he couldn't fill all the seats.
"Whether it’s that the school administrators have too many other tasks at hand, or they just don’t see the value in sending their top-performing African-Americans and Hispanics for a free program," he said, expressing surprise at the lack of interest.
Late to the Test (Prep)
Thirteen-year-old Shianna Williams said she wanted to go to Bronx High School of Science. But when we met in September outside her Bronx middle school, she had just started studying for the October test from a booklet about the specialized schools.
"It was an example test," she explained. "And I took it and when I looked at the answers I got 50 percent of them right."
That’s not good enough, especially with so little time to study. Shianna’s friend, Wilfredo Fermaintt, said he thought about outside tutoring but didn't think his family could afford it. The parents of both students told WNYC they didn't know tutoring was so important for the specialized high schools test.
Location could also be a factor. According to city data from 2013, there were only a dozen tutoring companies in the Bronx. But Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens each had more than 100 companies.
Sam Adewumi, who started a tutoring business in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, said too many black and Latino families did’t know tutoring was so critical. They often think doing well in school is enough, he added, "and unfortunately that’s not true."
Chasing the DREAM
New York City's Department of Education offers free tutoring through a program called DREAM. It offers spots to low-income sixth graders with good scores on their state math and English tests.
Eighth-grader Tatiana Summers was chosen for a seat.
"Before I didn't really want to go to a specialized high school, I was looking at Murrow and Madison. But now I kind of want to go to Brooklyn Tech," she said during a break from DREAM classes, held after school and on weekends.
Program director Doreen Kendall said that’s the point of the program: to improve diversity and attract smart kids who might not otherwise apply.
"It’s heartbreaking that had we not identified them, they would have missed this opportunity," she said.
According to the Department, Black and Hispanic students who attend DREAM have higher rates of acceptance to the specialized high schools than those who don’t attend the classes.
But recently there were just 1,450 seats for incoming sixth graders which didn't come close to meeting the demand for the more than 6,500 pupils eligible. While the city added a few hundred seats two years ago, education officials wouldn't say whether they had plans to add more.
Beyond the Specialized High Schools
Parents and students said they knew the specialized high schools weren't the only good public high schools in New York City. Students at a recent high school fair expressed excitement about various arts programs and large, comprehensive high schools with good reputations like Townsend Harris and Bayside.
"Certain people believe that based on the area the school is in, the school is necessarily bad," said student Raven Mitchell, while visiting a high school fair. "But it’s not about the area but the academics and the kids that go there."
The specialized high schools are the only schools that rely so heavily on a single test. New state rules prevent other high schools and middle schools now from letting state test scores count for more than 50 percent in their admissions criteria. But that doesn't mean they're not as competitive.
A look through the high school directory reveals how competitive the schools can be. Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, for example, had more than 3000 applicants for 160 ninth grade seats.
With reporting by Robert Lewis