As we near the start of the school year, there remain a number of questions around how public high school admissions will operate this fall, namely:

When and how will the SHSAT be administered?

When will the SHSAT and LaGuardia auditions signup window open?

Will auditions, tours, and open houses be live? Virtual? Both? And when will they be offered?

When will the general education high school application be due?

And perhaps the biggest question of all… How will individual schools determine how they will admit students, and when will we know?

Unfortunately, there are no clear answers on any of the above YET. We’re hoping for some clarity in early September, but there are some steps you can take right now to ensure your child is in a strong position going into the fall:

For now, assume the SHSAT will take place in late October, and help your child develop a study plan accordingly. The date MAY shift later, but without knowing that it is important to proceed as if the test will occur in October. Depending on how your child’s SHSAT preparation is going, and what their goal score is, you may want to add a private tutor into the mix. Private tutors can help develop individualized strategies and are the strongest way to boost the SHSAT score.


Prepare for the LaGuardia audition using the information available on the DOE website at 

. The how and what for the auditions may shift, but the metrics listed there will give your child an idea of what will be asked of them. Audition coaches and/or art teachers can be a great help with preparation and confidence.


Develop an over-inclusive list of general education and specialized schools of interest based on your child’s preferences and relevant family priorities (sports, preferred educational model, clubs, proximity to home, etc.). You can find information about schools on 

Collect examples of your child’s best work from 7th grade and/or the beginning of 8th grade (writing samples, lab reports, creative writing pieces, artwork, dance, vocal or instrumental solos, etc.). The writing samples should have teacher comments on them and should have been done individually.


Create a system to keep track of all of the information you have learned/will learn about each school of interest. Bookmark their URLs and check periodically to see if they have posted information on open houses, tours, and/or screening metrics.

Good luck with back to school, and I am here if you need me!

Late Summer 2021 NYC Admissions Update

The SHSAT, or Specialized High School Admissions Test, is not an easy test. Given to 8th graders who are interested in trying their luck at admissions to one of 

, the test has 114 questions to be done in 3 hours. That gives you about a minute and a half for each math question and even less time for the English questions (if you split your time equally between the math and English sections) because you also need time to read the reading comprehension passages.

And, on top of everything, the SHSAT doesn't provide you with a math formulas sheet. That means: you have to memorize them!

We're here to take the anxiety out of your test prep journey. One way to ensure a stress-free SHSAT experience is to have a very strong command over the math formulas you'll need to know in order to solve the 57 math questions. We think that while you're practicing, you'll need this trusty cheat sheet! Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD OUR SHSAT FORMULAS TO MEMORIZE CHEAT SHEET!

SHSAT Math Formulas to Memorize

My name is Alejandro and I am a third-year medical student. I enjoy what I study and am excited to begin my career as a physician in the summer of 2023.

The purpose of this post is to give study tips to high school students who are considering a career in medicine. The advice begins with more general advice about initially making the decision to pursue medicine, then proceeds to become more specific about how to develop the skills necessary to be a medical student. I hope that I can inspire future physicians who will make significant contributions to medicine.

1. Know your motivations and reasons for becoming a doctor.

Before you decide that you will go down the arduous journey of becoming a doctor, I suggest you become aware of what is motivating you. I believe that becoming a doctor for reasons such as: the degree comes with cultural prestige, it pays a competitive salary, or you would make your parents happy are all ill-advised.

Becoming a doctor is extremely stressful and requires tremendous sacrifice. People who become doctors for the money or for their parents can be good doctors, but they may live unfulfilled lives. The combination of embarking on a career with a very stressful lifestyle to impress or please others sounds like a perfect recipe for self-destruction.

Becoming a doctor requires relentlessness in many ways. For example, many doctors, including extremely successful and bright ones, do not get accepted to medical school until their 2nd or 3rd year of applying. Similarly, a physician presented with a sick patient who has an undiagnosable collection of symptoms cannot give up until he finds a solution to the patient’s problems. If your intentions to become a doctor are genuine, I believe that it is easier to shake off the rejections/failures and not lose sight of your dream of becoming a doctor and/or healing a patient.

Now, if you want to become a doctor because you love the problem-solving aspect of science/medicine, or love being a leader when it comes to helping people, or you have a life experience that motivated you to find a medical solution for someone that you care about (or another sound motivation) then I would be thrilled if you choose medicine.

I believe that becoming a good doctor does not require remarkable intelligence. Maybe you’re lucky and you’re one of the elite people in this world who hardly needs to study to obtain outstanding scores. Maybe you have mediocre scores but your organizational skills could use refining. Or maybe you’re a mess and never considered yourself particularly outstanding, but you’ve become motivated to become a doctor. The truth is that all of you can become doctors.

Medical school requires a tremendous amount of memorization, repetition and practice. Being the brightest person in your class will hardly help when memorizing every bone and muscle in the human body. The most successful medical students are the ones with the determination to sit and review the material over and over again. In fact, I’ve found that sometimes the smartest students are the more arrogant ones who believe they can get by with little effort. Plenty of less intelligent, but highly motivated, students have surpassed the smartest ones because of their discipline and perseverance. The earlier that you develop strong study habits, the better you will be.

That said, I will now go into specifics about how to obtain strong study habits.

3. Take the initiative to make your own study plans

In high school, the teacher often lays out a general schedule of when topics should be learned by and the test date. As a tutor and teacher, I’ve found that many high school students take these schedules literally and never question if it is what is best for them. Instead of just doing what the teacher says, make your own study plan. Determine what you know well and where you need more practice. If you need to review the cell cycle before your bio test next week and you weren’t clear on the corresponding assignment from the week before, make sure you make the time to go back to study the cell cycle before you become anxious as you cram everything the night before the test.

Additionally, are you like many “over-scheduled” high school kids who do dance, football and everything in between? You have to take the time to plan for study time as an essential part of your busy schedule. If you have an exam on Friday, but a big game on Thursday night, make sure to plan time on Monday-Wednesday to review the material and follow through with the plan.

It’s one thing to make a good study plan, but it’s often hard for high school students to follow through with their plans. To be a successful pre-Med student, and a way to hold yourself accountable and follow through on your plans. One way might be to involve others. If you plan on having study groups Mon-Wed, then others will be counting on you to show up and perform. You’ll get the studying done. Another way is to rely on a system, like check-lists or an app, like Trello. Make lists of everything you must get done daily and hold yourself accountable to working through the list diligently every day.


I also found these articles very helpful for improving your study habits:


https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/back-to-school-study-tips

https://student-tutor.com/blog/top-10-high-school-study-tips/

https://ivytutorsnetwork.com/blog/want-to-master-standardized-testing-find-out-your-learning-style

Maybe creating your own study plan sounds like an alien language to you. If so, I suggest starting with small improvements. Let’s go back to the example above of having a test Friday but a big game on Thursday night. If you are incapable of completely preparing for the exam Monday-Wednesday, that’s fine. Maybe start out with doing light reviews early in the week so that you at least have a lighter study load the night before the exam.

Make incremental changes, not everything at once. If you usually would study on Thursday night only and this time, you managed to study Monday and Thursday, be proud of the progress you’ve made and try to keep improving. In fact, many of my medical school classmates and I are continuing to improve our study habits every day. I recently took my board exam (!!) and created a study schedule for every day of the 3 months it took me to study. I studied 12-14 hours per day with every hour of the day planned (6 days per week). It was the hardest that I ever studied for an exam and I was proud that I was able to develop my study habits enough to get to that point. If you asked me 3 years ago if I thought I could prepare so diligently for something, I would have probably laughed at you. Small and steady improvements got me to where I am. I believe that most, if not all, of my classmates can tell you similar stories of improvement. Even if you have strong study skills now, I suggest looking for more ways to improve them.

Please note that my study schedule included one rest day per week. Part of creating an effective study schedule is being mindful of the rest your brain and body need. I undoubtedly would not have been able to complete those three months of studying without taking the short rest periods that I did.

You may be lucky and have a family member or another adult who is a doctor. If so, I suggest you reach out to them and ask if you can shadow them for a couple of days. You will follow them around and see if medicine is truly something that you are attracted to.

If you don’t have a relationship with a doctor, that’s fine too! Taking initiative is a big part of becoming a doctor. You could simply email many physicians in your neighborhood, asking if you could shadow them. There’s a good chance many of them won’t respond, but there are plenty of physicians who will be extremely impressed that a high school kid took the initiative to write an email asking for career help.

Taking initiative is a trait that is never taught in high school or pre-med courses; yet, it is integral to becoming a successful physician. You can also reach out to your academic advisors at school to see if they have a relationship with any programs that allow high school students to shadow physicians. These experiences will also stand out when you apply to college and even, once you are in college, when you apply for internships as a pre-med student!

Thank you for reading and I hope you choose medicine.

5 Tips for High School Students Considering Medicine 

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