The SHSAT is not a pass/fail dealio

It is, rather, a zero sum game where by definition not everybody is going to pass the magical, ever-changing threshold score for any of the schools they'd like to attend. Because they're not simply competing against themselves, they're competing against everybody else for a very limited number of spots.

Whether this is good or bad is up for (endless) debate, apparently, but it is never going to be possible for "anybody" to get in so long as everybody believes that. No matter how "easy" you think the test turned out to be for you.

Okay, here it is.

1. The specialized science high schools are overrated. The teaching isn't noticeably better than at other schools, and we can see from studies that students who just missed the cut-off for those schools don't do any worse than students who just got in.

2. They also get way too much media attention, and I'm sure that this is not healthy for those students. My goodness, kids at Stuy etc. have big enough egos! They don't need their school in the news every day to boost it.

3. If your argument is "well, if those smart kids went to other schools they'd be bullied because they're smart" - first of all, there are plenty of selective schools in NYC they could go to instead, and I'm not convinced "bully the smart kids" is the rule at every last one of the non-selective schools. Secondly, however you look at it, a school where you get bullied (and it's not that bullying can't happen anywhere) is not really objectively worse than one where everybody "knows" that the administration won't let anybody out on the balcony because they're scared of suicides and where the options for tests are a. study your life away b. conspicuously not study so that you can blame your poor grades on laziness instead of failure to learn c. cheat d. set fires in the bathroom (we spent so much time shivering in the cold that year due to those impromptu "fire drills"). There are lots of ways for a school to be a toxic environment.

4. I don't even care anymore, I just want everybody to agree to settle this next year and let us get our application results from round one now.