Asian students dominate NYC’s specialized high school admissions

Nearly 80% of offers to New York City’s specialized high schools this fall went to Asian and white students, while Black and Hispanic students saw their already minimal representation decline further, the latest Education Department data shows.

By the numbers: Asian students received 53.5% of the roughly 4,000 acceptance letters despite representing just over 32% of the approximately 26,000 test-takers, while white students received 25.9% of spots from only 17.3% of those who took the exam. Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic students represented nearly 45% of test-takers but received just 9.9% of available seats. Black student acceptances dropped to 3% from last year’s 4.5%, while Hispanic students fell to 6.9% from 7.6%. At Stuyvesant High School, Black students received eight acceptances out of 781 total offers, while Asian students received 509 and white students received 142.

Dig deeper: These ongoing disparities intensify debates over the single-exam system while legal battles mount. Last September, a federal appeals court revived a lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian applicants through the Discovery Program, which requires schools to reserve 20% of their seats for students from economically disadvantaged middle schools. Asian families have positioned themselves as staunch advocates for maintaining the current testing approach, viewing these schools as essential stepping stones to higher education, while critics demand change.

The big picture: Officials withheld the admissions data until late July, sparking transparency concerns during an election year. “They should’ve had this data out at least a month ago,” former Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer wrote on Bluesky. Mayor Eric Adams, who once denounced the system as “a Jim Crow school system,” has avoided pursuing reforms since taking office, choosing instead to establish three new accelerated schools serving predominantly Black and Latino students. The Discovery Program itself reflects these disparities, with Asian students comprising 63.3% of participants compared to just 26.8% for Black and Hispanic students combined.

With the November election approaching, Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, who graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, has shifted from supporting test elimination to backing only an independent bias analysis.