How To Apply

BHSEC is a public, non-specialized, and screened high school / early college. To learn more about our screening process, please review our admissions requirements.

Eighth grade applicants who are interested in our program must fill out the NYC Department of Education (DOE) High School Form.  Please ask your guidance counselor for this form.  You may rank 12 non-specialized programs / schools on the DOE High School Form in addition to the specialized and audition high schools (Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School, High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College, High School of American Studies at Lehman College, Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, and Stuyvesant High School). Please note that if you are applying to both programs (BHSEC and BHSEC II) you must list them as two separate choices.  High schools will have no way of knowing the students' priority order. However, it is still very important that the students review their program / school choices and carefully prioritize their high school list. We strongly recommend that students seek advice from their guidance counselors and  review the NYC High School Directory before ranking programs.

The new system will "match" students and program / schools: a student will be matched to only the highest choice school which also accepted that student to its program. Thus, students will not be notified of their acceptance or denial to all 12 schools; they will only know about their highest choice school to which they have been "matched." For more information on the DOE high school admission process, please click here.

Middle school guidance counselors will distribute the DOE High School Form when it becomes available in the winter. With the help of parents and guidance counselor students must fill out this application and rank BHSEC as one of their non-specialized school choices.

We will consider all qualified students regardless of where they rank us. However, if a student is serious about applying to BHSEC, we encourage her or him to place BHSEC at the top of her or his DOE priority list. It is also important that you meet the DOE’s admissions deadlines. BHSEC cannot consider any student for admissions who does not apply through the DOE and satisfies its application guidelines.

A copy of the 7th grade report card and the academic reference (optional) are due on the date students are scheduled for the writing and math assessment.  You may mail the optional academic references to BHSEC as long as we receive them by November 9th, 2009.  

Students will be invited to interview at Bard High School Early College based on the results of the assessment, academic records, and academic references. Not all students will be asked to interview at BHSEC. We will contact students by email if they are eligible for an interview. This is the final stage in the admission process.

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