Townsend Harris asks Grade 9 applicants for two things beyond grades: a short humanities essay and a video of up to two minutes. Together they count for 40% of the assessment. This guide explains what each one asks, how to approach it, and what families tend to get wrong, using only what the school has published.
How the assessment is weighted
For students entering high school in fall 2027, the school's admissions criteria page lists the assessment as 60% average course grades, 20% essay and 20% video. NYC Public Schools lists the same weighting for Townsend Harris High School, program 25Q525, on its page of assessments for screened schools.
Both pieces are submitted through MySchools under Additional Materials. The school reads them after the application closes on December 4, 2026.
The video
The 2026-27 question set asks for a video of 2 minutes at most. It must include two things: an introduction to the student, and an answer to a question about what the student would bring to the school.
The question draws on the Ephebic Oath, which every Townsend Harris student swears. The oath ends with a promise to leave the city "greater than I found it." The video asks the student to name two talents, interests, abilities or gifts that would enrich the school community, and to explain how they would leave the school greater than they found it.
A few practical points follow from that wording.
- Two things, named clearly. The question asks for two. Pick two, and say what they are early.
- How, not just what. The second half of the question is about contribution. A talent only counts for the answer when the student connects it to something they would do for other people.
- Short. Two minutes is a hard maximum. A first take usually runs long. Read it aloud once with a timer.
- Plain setting. A quiet room, steady light and a phone held at eye level are enough. Check the sound before you upload.
The writing task
The second part is a humanities response of 250 to 500 words, which the school describes as roughly 1,200 to 2,500 characters. For 2026-27 it begins from the oath's line about resisting anyone who destroys the laws or disobeys them. It sets that line beside a passage from Theodore Roosevelt's 1903 address in Pasadena, California, and asks whether Townsend Harris students should swear to resist anyone who disobeys the law.
The school asks for a sophisticated, nuanced position, and it provides two resources to draw on: an article by Christopher Wilson about four students who sat down to take a stand, and a Court Shorts piece on the rule of law from United States Courts.
We are not reproducing the full prompt here. The school publishes it, and it changes from year to year, so read the current version on the school's own document and ignore anything older.
What a strong response tends to do
The school has published a rubric, and we do not summarize its scoring. What we can say from the prompt itself is this.
- It takes a position. The question is a yes or no with reasons, so a response that avoids choosing will not answer it.
- It uses the two resources. The prompt says to use them, so refer to them by what they say.
- It stays inside the word range. Five hundred words is a real limit.
- It sounds like the student. Admissions readers see many essays. A voice that belongs to a thirteen-year-old is easier to trust than one that has been polished by an adult.
What parents can do
Your role is to make the task clear and the schedule realistic, not to write the answer. Print the questions. Set two dates on the calendar: one for the essay draft and one for the video. Ask your student to explain their position aloud before writing it. If they can say it in two sentences, they can write it in 500 words.
It also helps to talk through the oath itself. Every student swears it, so a student who has thought about what it asks of them has already done part of the work.
Mistakes to avoid
- Treating the essay as a generic personal statement. It is a response to a specific prompt.
- Using an old question. Prompts from earlier years circulate online. This year's set is the one that applies.
- Leaving the upload for the deadline. NYC Public Schools has troubleshooting tips for uploads, but they will not help at 11pm on December 4.
- Assuming grades are settled and the rest does not matter. Grades are 60%, and the essay and video are the other 40%.
What we do not know
The pages we reviewed do not say how the 60% grades component is converted into points, how many applicants the school receives or how many seats it fills. They also do not publish earlier-year cutoffs. If any of those facts matter to your decision, ask the school or NYC Public Schools directly.
One practical note
If you would like to talk through your own student's situation in writing, you can use our contact page. For the broader picture of high school admissions across schools, see EduAvenues high school admissions.
Sources
- Townsend Harris Admissions Criteria
- Townsend Harris Admissions Assessment Questions 2026-2027
- NYC Public Schools: Assessments for Screened Schools
- NYC Public Schools: Screened Admissions
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