Who sits which
Most students sit the SHSAT in the fall of grade 8, for entry into grade 9. A smaller group sits it in the fall of grade 9, for entry into grade 10. They take different forms, covering content appropriate to the extra year of school.
The part that decides most outcomes
The difference that matters is not the paper. It is the number of seats.
Specialized high schools admit most of their students into grade 9. Grade 10 places exist only where a student has left, so there are dramatically fewer of them, and they are not distributed evenly across the eight schools. A composite that would comfortably earn a grade 9 place can fall short for grade 10 in the same year at the same school.
This is worth being straight about with a child before they sit it, because the experience of missing out on a strong score is discouraging in a way that is nobody's fault.
If your child is in grade 8
Sit it. There is no downside: it costs nothing, there is no penalty for a low score, and a student who does not receive an offer is exactly where they would have been anyway. A child who is unsure about the specialized schools still keeps the option open by testing.
If your child is in grade 9
It is still worth doing, with expectations set honestly. Prepare the same way, and look at the recent cutoff scores to see how the bar has moved.
Preparing either way
The content is the same shape at both levels — reading comprehension, revising and editing, and mathematics — and the fall 2026 format changes apply to both. Our practice exams are adaptive, so they settle at the level a particular student is working at rather than assuming a grade.
Before anything else, read what changed on the 2026 adaptive SHSAT — particularly the forward-only mathematics section, which catches out students at both grades.
Practice the real thing
Our SHSAT exams are full length and written from scratch — every wrong answer carries its own explanation, so a child learns what they got wrong and why. Ten questions are free, with no account and no card. After that it is five credits an exam.