Due to technical difficulties with the testing vendor, CPS has needed to make major changes to the High School Admissions Testing (HSAT) schedule and procedures. The information contained within this page is the most up-to-date.
Updated 12 p.m. October 18
Thank you; CPS sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience that these vendor issues have caused students and their families.
Students testing in English will take the exam on Tuesday, October 24th or Wednesday, October 25th, depending on their school’s administration date. Families should look out for an email from their school with the correct date.
Students testing in Arabic, Polish, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, or Urdu will take the exam on Wednesday, November 1.
Make-up testing days will be offered on Tuesday, November 7 for English and Wednesday, November 8 for Arabic, Polish, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, or Urdu.
A final make-up day for any remaining students who have not tested will be on Wednesday, November 15.
What was the testing issue on 10/11?The vendor’s online testing platform encountered problems that resulted in service issues on October 11th. The vendor’s engineering team completed a root cause analysis and determined that requests to their servers were backlogged and then delayed.
Has the vendor’s service issue been resolved?Yes, the vendor remediated the problem by adding server capacity and conducted testing to verify the solution was effective. Further, the CPS ITS team has reviewed results of vendor testing to confirm preparedness for resuming the HS Admissions Test program.
All 8th-grade students are eligible and strongly recommended to retest on October 24th or October 25th, depending on their school’s administration date.
How will I know my school’s retest date?School principals will be notifying students of their retest date over email. Families should ask the school’s administration if they do not receive the email with the retesting date.
Will students take the same test used on 10/11?No, the upcoming test will be a different test form with different test questions than the one used on October 11th.
Will students be able to opt out of retaking the test and use their scores from 10/11?While CPS strongly recommends all students to take advantage of the opportunity to retest, parents/guardians who were satisfied with their student’s testing experience on 10/11 and would like to use their scores from this original test date should fill out this form and turn it into their school by Monday, October 23rd. Parents can provide in hard copy or email the completed form to the principal or their designee. The principal or their designee will send confirmation that the student has a valid test score from October 11th that can be used.
Which scores will be used for GoCPS high school admissions?For students who test on October 24 or 25, the scores from these retesting sessions will be used for the high school selection process; any scores that would have been earned from October 11th will not be considered for these students.
Students whose parent / guardian completes the form opting out of the retest opportunity on October 24 or 25 will retain their scores from the test on October 11.
If my student completed the reading test on October 11th, will they retake the entire test?Yes, all students who are retesting will take the entire test. The CPS HS Admissions Test has two test sections -- Reading and Mathematics. Each test section is completed in 30 minutes, for a total testing time of 60 minutes.
Will students be allowed to use their best score if they choose to retake the exam?No, students who retest will use their score from the retest administration, not the score they would have received from the October 11th administration. Students of families who complete the opt out form will use their scores from October 11th and will not retest.
Will students be able to use a Reading or Mathematics score from 10/11 and then retest for either Reading or Mathematics?
No. Students who wish to use their score from 10/11 must use their score from the entire test, which includes both the Reading and Mathematics sections.
There was a mathematics item containing a Spanish word in the October 11th test. Will this question be counted towards a student’s score?
Students whose parent or guardian completes the form opting out of the test opportunity on October 24 or 25 will retain their scores from the test on October 11. For those students, the question with the Spanish word will be included in their score. It’s not possible to remove this test question and still provide students with a valid score. Again, CPS recommends all 8th graders retake the test due to issues on test day.
What if a student is absent or unable to test on October 24th or 25th?As with the original testing plan, there will be make-up dates for Students who are unable to test on the 24th or 25th. Make-up testing days will be offered on Tuesday, November 7 for English and Wednesday, November 8 for Arabic, Polish, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, or Urdu. A final make-up day for any remaining students who have not tested will be on Wednesday, November 15.
The GoCPS application deadline remains the same; November 9th at 5 pm. The re-ranking deadline, however, has been extended to Friday, December 1st to allow families time to re-rank their application if they wish to do so after seeing their scores. Families are always strongly advised to rank programs in their order of preference. Re-ranking is not required.