About School Match
School Match is a free helper for parents choosing a public high school in New York City. We bring the city’s open data together in one place and show honestly where your chances are real and where they are slim.
What it does
- An admission chance range for each of 900+ high school programs, based on the admission method, your group, borough and priorities.
- Lottery number modeling: how chances change with a good, average or bad number, or with the number you see in MySchools.
- A MySchools list check: order, balance of reach and safer programs, and the risk of getting no offer.
- An SHSAT calculator with cutoff scores for all eight specialized high schools from the two most recent admissions cycles.
- A calendar of open houses, tours and DOE dates, with email reminders.
- A map of schools near your home and side-by-side program comparison.
Who makes it
This is a family project by New York City parents. We are choosing a high school for our own child and built the tool we wished we had: the DOE’s open data is spread across dozens of spreadsheets, and estimating a real chance by hand is close to impossible.
We are not a school or a tutoring company, and we are not affiliated with the NYC Department of Education (NYC Public Schools).
Where the data comes from
- NYC DOE InfoHub — High School Directory data (Fall 2023–2025 admissions): programs, seats, applicants, admission methods and priorities.
- NYC DOE InfoHub — Demographic Snapshot and the 2026 NYC School Survey (students, parents and teachers).
- NYC Open Data — School Quality Reports (average SAT score) and school locations.
- MySchools (myschools.nyc) — school pages: languages and links.
- School websites and NYC Public Schools (schools.nyc.gov) — dates of open houses, tours, tests and deadlines.
- SHSAT cutoff scores: the latest cycle is published by the DOE, and the prior one comes from public sources.
- NYC GeoSearch (the city geocoder) — address suggestions; Google Places — school ratings and photos.
Honest limits
- Every number is an estimate based on past admissions data, not an official forecast. Applicants and seats change every year.
- The lottery is random: a good number does not guarantee a seat, and a bad one does not close every door.
- Only the DOE makes offers, through MySchools. Applications are submitted only there.
- Event dates are collected from school websites and can change — confirm with the school before you go.
- Found a mistake in a school’s data? Tell us and we will fix it.