Queens High School for the Sciences

Overview

Queens High School for the Sciences (QHSS) is a New York City public specialized high school in Jamaica, Queens, serving high school students citywide and admitting them solely on their score on the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, the SHSAT. It is the borough of Queens’ only specialized high school (Chalkbeat New York). Its Panel for Educational Policy designation as a specialized school — subject to SHSAT-only admission under the Calandra-Hecht provision of New York State education law — dates to its founding in 2002 (Gotham Gazette).

For its first 24 years the school had no building of its own. It operated out of 14 classrooms on the second floor of York College’s campus, roughly 130 students over the space’s capacity — even while it was ranked the top high school in New York State in the 2024 U.S. News & World Report rankings, ahead of schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science (Chalkbeat New York; Hudson Valley Post). In 2026 the school relocated to its own dedicated building in Jamaica, its first in its history.

Not to be confused with Queens High School of Teaching, a separate non-specialized public high school, QHSS is — and has always been — the only specialized high school in Queens (Chalkbeat New York).

Founded on a CUNY campus

In May 2002, the New York City Board of Education and the City University of New York announced three new selective high schools to open that September on CUNY campuses: one with a science focus at York College, one for mathematics, science and engineering at City College, and one for the humanities and social sciences at Lehman College. Announced under Mayor Michael Bloomberg by city schools chancellor Harold Levy and CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein, the three schools were to admit students by the same admissions test used at the established specialized schools, open with about 125 ninth graders each, eventually grow to around 500 students apiece, and let students take college classes — particularly in their senior year. Together the initiative was expected to add nearly 400 selective-school seats a year (The New York Times).

The Gotham Gazette’s history of the city’s specialized schools records that QHSS was founded and designated a specialized school by the Panel for Educational Policy in 2002, subject to SHSAT-only admission under the Calandra-Hecht provision, during Joel Klein’s tenure as chancellor. Because QHSS is one of the newer specialized schools rather than one of the three originally named in the state law, New York City — not Albany — holds the authority to change its admissions policy (Gotham Gazette). It was one of five such nonmandated specialized schools created during the Bloomberg administration between 2002 and 2006, and legal experts consulted during the de Blasio-era admissions debate said the mayor likely had the authority to alter admissions rules at those schools (The 74).

Life on the York campus was defined by the college connection. Students conducted research with York College professors — one student went on to compete in the Intel Science Talent Search, now the Regeneron Science Talent Search — and took College Now courses taught by York faculty, including sociology and psychology alongside the sciences. The school supplemented its science focus with humanities and social science electives such as international relations and science fiction. Its students came from Bangladesh, Korea, China, Pakistan, Poland, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Mexico, Peru, England and India, and many were bilingual or even trilingual, arriving by the E, J and Z trains in Jamaica (InsideSchools).

Admission and the diversity debate

Admission to QHSS is by the SHSAT alone, the same single-test system used at the city’s older specialized schools (Chalkbeat New York). For the 2025-26 admissions cycle, 11,809 students listed the school and 148 received offers — an acceptance rate near one percent (Chalkbeat New York).

The test-only system has made QHSS part of the city’s long-running debate over who gets into the specialized schools. Chalkbeat reported in 2021 that more than 80 percent of the school’s roughly 480 students were Asian American, while about 3 percent were Black — in a city where Black students make up roughly a quarter of public school students. Only 10 Black students received offers for the following school year. Elizabeth Yarde, a 2021 graduate and the daughter of Caribbean immigrants, described feeling isolated and hearing racial slurs at the school, and she credited the student-led Black Student Union with giving her a community there (Chalkbeat New York). Then-mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to replace the SHSAT failed in the state legislature, and the city has instead leaned on DREAM, a free test-preparation program for students from underrepresented neighborhoods (Chalkbeat New York).

The stakes are felt acutely in Queens. Only 3.2 percent of the city’s specialized-high-school seats are located in Queens, while nearly one-third of specialized-school offers go to Queens residents — meaning most Queens students who earn a seat must commute to another borough, some more than an hour each way (Chalkbeat New York).

Twenty-four years without a building

By the 2025-26 school year, the contradiction between the school’s standing and its surroundings had become the story. About 500 students shared a floor of a college campus: a gym shared with York College two blocks away and open only until 12:30 p.m., a shared library, no dedicated kitchen — students heated food with two basement microwaves instead — and no dedicated science laboratories or art rooms, despite the school’s name and mission. The school also lacked an auditorium (Chalkbeat New York; Chalkbeat New York).

Students and families turned the frustration into a campaign. In November 2025 they gathered more than 4,000 petition signatures, and multiple parent boards — including Community Education Council 28 and the citywide high school parent council — passed resolutions supporting a move to a larger proposed building nearby. Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said the department was “exploring options” and planned to visit the school (Chalkbeat New York).

The building the city proposed, at 165-15 88th Avenue in Jamaica, was not uncontested: a second school, HBCU Early College Prep, also sought the site. The education department’s projections envisioned QHSS growing from about 500 students to about 700 by the 2029-30 school year (Chalkbeat New York).

The move to a dedicated building

The school’s own website now lists its address as 165-18 Hillside Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11432 — a dedicated building rather than a floor of a college campus (Queens High School for the Sciences). The New York State Education Department’s data site confirms the school’s legal name as Queens High School for the Sciences at York College and its principal as Ana De Jesus; for 2024-25 it records 495 students and a 100 percent four-year graduation rate (NYSED Data Site). De Jesus became principal in 2016, after leading the Bronx High School of Business and serving as an assistant principal at Herbert H. Lehman High School (InsideSchools).

In the 2024 U.S. News & World Report rankings, which covered more than 24,000 public high schools, QHSS was ranked first in New York and 25th nationally — ahead of Stuyvesant High School, which placed third in the state and 33rd nationally (Hudson Valley Post).

What this profile does not claim

• No notable alumni of QHSS could be independently verified, so no alumni are named here rather than inventing them.
• The February 25, 2026 Panel for Educational Policy vote on the relocation is not cited in this profile because the local report on it could not be fetched this session; the move itself is documented through the school’s own current address and contemporaneous relocation reporting.
• The two addresses in circulation for the new building — 165-15 88th Avenue in the city proposal and 165-18 Hillside Avenue on the school’s own website — are presented as found; this profile does not resolve whether they are different entrances to the same site.
• No source read for this profile says whether enrollment has in fact expanded since the move, or by how much; the expansion projections (about 700 versus 800 students by 2029-30) differ by source.
• The demographic figures quoted are from 2021 reporting; no newer verified breakdown was found.
• The profile does not claim a full history of the school’s principals; only Ana De Jesus’ tenure since 2016 is confirmed by two independent sources. The state’s legal name for the school still includes “at York College.”