What Is the TACHS Test? The Catholic High School Admissions Exam Explained

The TACHS, short for "Test for Admission into Catholic High Schools," is the entrance exam that eighth graders take when applying to Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn/Queens, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island. Administered online each November by Riverside Insights, it measures achievement in reading, written expression, and mathematics along with general reasoning ability, and the results go directly to the three high schools a student selects. This article explains who takes the TACHS, what each section covers, how it is formatted and scored, how it differs from the HSPT, and how families can prepare sensibly.

According to the official TACHS information site, students enrolled in eighth grade during the 2026-2027 school year who plan to apply for Fall 2027 admission to a Catholic high school in one of the three participating dioceses are eligible to register. The test is a one-shot event: the 2026 Student Handbook states plainly that "a student may take the TACHS examination only once." Students applying to a Catholic high school for any grade other than ninth skip the TACHS entirely and apply directly to the school.

The exam sits at the center of a coordinated admissions process. The TACHS program reports that high school selection decisions rest on a combination of TACHS results, state testing results, and the "Applicant Record," a form completed by the student's elementary school summarizing recent grades and standardized testing history. In other words, the TACHS matters, but it is one input among several rather than a single gatekeeper.

For the 2026 cycle, registration runs from August 24 through October 28, 2026, and the fee is $78. That fee covers registration, administration of the exam, score reporting to the student's three chosen high schools, and online access to the family's "Home Report."

The official site and the 2026 Student Handbook confirm that the current TACHS contains four subtests. The handbook describes the exam as measuring "academic achievement in reading, written expression, and mathematics, along with general reasoning skills."

• Reading: Students work through informational and literary passages and answer questions at factual, interpretive, and evaluative levels of comprehension. Question types include main idea, author's purpose, and the meaning of a word in context.

• Written expression: This section tests writing in Standard English. Some questions ask for the most appropriate way to express an idea, touching on organization, sentence structure, clarity, and appropriateness of expression. Others ask students to identify which line of text contains an error.

• Mathematics: Questions draw from number sense and operations, algebraic patterns and connections, data analysis/probability/statistics, geometry, and measurement. New for 2026, a basic four-function calculator is provided inside the testing platform for applicable questions; personal calculators are prohibited, and using one is grounds for disqualification.

• Ability: The official description says this section "measures students' learned reasoning abilities" using somewhat more novel questions with spatial and figural content, showing how well students reason through problems "they may or may not have been directly taught."

The first three sections are achievement tests: they check what a student has learned in school. The Ability section belongs to a different tradition, which a later section examines more closely.

Since 2020 the TACHS has been an online, remote, at-home exam. The program states that all three dioceses have agreed to continue this format, which uses Proctorio remote proctoring; in-school administration is not offered.

For students without accommodations, the whole session takes about 2 hours and 10 minutes including directions, with short optional breaks between subtests. Students are randomly assigned a start time of either 8:30 AM or 10:00 AM. In 2026, the Archdiocese of New York tests on Friday, November 6, while the Diocese of Brooklyn/Queens and the Diocese of Rockville Centre test on Saturday, November 7.

Accommodations are narrow. The only one available is extended time at time and a half, which requires an IEP, a 504 plan, or a current evaluation report, submitted by the program's deadline (October 2, 2026 for the current cycle). Students approved for extended time test at 8:30 AM.

The TACHS does not produce an IQ-style standard score or an SAT-style scaled score. According to the program's Home Report guide, families receive two "percentile ranks," the percentage of a comparison group scoring at or below the student's result, for each area.

• National Percentile Rank (NPR): Compares the student with eighth graders across the country who took a similar test. An NPR of 73 in Reading means the student scored at or above 73 percent of the national sample.

• Local Percentile Rank (LPR): Compares the student only with students who took the TACHS in the participating dioceses on the same test dates. The program notes it is common for the LPR to be quite a bit lower than the NPR, because the local applicant pool is academically competitive.

Ranks are reported for Reading, Written Expression, and Mathematics, along with a Total Achievement Score (a weighted average of those three) and a separate Ability Score. The program is explicit that it releases no raw scores or percent-correct figures, and that results are final, with no rescoring or retesting available.

Timing surprises many families. Scores go only to the student's three chosen high schools, and the Home Report becomes available to parents on January 22, 2027, deliberately after high school decisions have been processed. Families may then share the report with additional schools themselves; the program will not send it to more than three schools for any fee.

The Ability section occupies interesting territory. Achievement tests measure taught content; ability tests use novel problems, often figural and spatial, to estimate reasoning skill that is not tied to a specific curriculum. The TACHS description leans carefully into this distinction, saying the measured abilities are "grounded in biological processes" yet "developed through in-school and out-of-school experiences." That is a mainstream position in psychometrics: reasoning ability is real and partly heritable, and it also develops through education and experience.

There are useful reference points in the same publishing family. Riverside Insights, which administers the TACHS, also publishes the Cognitive Abilities Test, a group reasoning test widely used for gifted screening; our article on the CogAT explains how that style of measurement works. The TACHS handbook's copyright page also credits The University of Iowa, reflecting the lineage of the Iowa achievement batteries covered in our overview of the Iowa test. A comparable pairing of ability testing with achievement data appears in the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, described in our OLSAT guide.

The practical takeaway for parents: the Ability score is closer to an aptitude estimate than a grade report, but it remains a group-administered screening measure. No one should treat a single November morning's percentile as a definitive statement of a child's intelligence.

Catholic high schools outside the three TACHS dioceses generally use a different exam. Scholastic Testing Service reports that its High School Placement Test (HSPT) has been used by academic high schools nationwide for over fifty years for admissions, scholarship selection, and curriculum placement of eighth graders entering ninth grade.

The two tests differ in structure. The HSPT has five subtests (Verbal, Quantitative, Reading, Mathematics, and Language) and reports standard scores and national percentiles, plus composites: Total Cognitive Skills combines Verbal and Quantitative, Total Basic Skills combines Reading, Mathematics, and Language, and a Battery Composite covers all five. Like the TACHS, it carries no guessing penalty, and its Verbal and Quantitative subtests play a role similar to the TACHS Ability section, sampling reasoning rather than curriculum content. Unlike the 2026 TACHS platform, STS states that calculators are not permitted on the HSPT Mathematics subtest. Which test a student faces is a matter of geography, so families should confirm requirements with each target school rather than choosing between exams.

Once. The 2026 Student Handbook states a student may take the TACHS examination only once, and no rescoring or retesting is available.

Scores are percentile ranks, so context matters. The program notes that a local percentile of 50 is still a solid result in a competitive applicant pool.

Schools receive scores first. Families can access the Home Report online starting January 22, 2027 at 3:00 PM ET, after high school decisions have been processed.

No. Reports go only to the three chosen schools. After the Home Report is released, families may share it with additional schools on their own.

No official practice test exists. The Student Handbook includes sample questions, and TACHS does not endorse third-party prep programs.

Not as a whole. Three sections measure school achievement. The Ability section samples general reasoning with novel spatial and figural problems, which is closer to ability testing, but it is a group screening measure rather than a diagnostic IQ test.

Official prep material is deliberately thin. The program publishes sample questions in its Student Handbook but no official practice tests, and it cautions that commercial prep courses are not published, supported, or endorsed by TACHS, so their formats may not match the real exam. Its stated position is that students who consistently perform well in elementary school coursework can reasonably expect to perform well on the TACHS. Sensible preparation looks ordinary: steady schoolwork, reviewing the handbook's sample items, and getting familiar with the at-home setup and device check before test day.

Admissions exams like the TACHS end in eighth grade, but curiosity about reasoning ability often outlasts them. Adults who want a serious measure of their own cognitive abilities can take the RIOT IQ test (the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test), developed by RIOT IQ with psychometrician Dr. Russell T. Warne for adults 18 and older. It includes 15 subtests across six cognitive indices (verbal reasoning, fluid reasoning, spatial ability, working memory, processing speed, and reaction time), takes about 52 minutes, and reports scores on the familiar mean-100, standard-deviation-15 IQ scale. It does not replace an individually administered diagnostic evaluation. As a normed, research-based measure of adult reasoning, though, it gives you what a school admissions percentile never could: a current picture of where your abilities stand. You can take it at https://www.riotiq.com/.

1. TACHS. (2026). Test for Admission into Catholic High Schools: Official information site.. tachsinfo.com

2. Riverside Assessments, LLC. (2026). TACHS student handbook 2026.. tachsinfo.com

3. TACHS. (2026). How do I read and interpret my Home Report?. tachsinfo.com

4. Scholastic Testing Service. (n.d.). High School Placement Test: Parent and student information.. ststesting.com

5. Scholastic Testing Service. (n.d.). How are tests scored?. ststesting.com

6. Riverside Insights. (n.d.). Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT).. riversideinsights.com

7. RIOT IQ. (2026). The RIOT IQ test: Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test.. riotiq.com

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Internal links used in body: - CogAT: https://www.riotiq.com/articles/specific-iq-tests-and-formats/what-is-the-cogat-test (anchor: "our article on the CogAT") - Iowa test: https://www.riotiq.com/articles/specific-iq-tests-and-formats/what-is-the-iowa-test (anchor: "our overview of the Iowa test") - OLSAT: https://www.riotiq.com/articles/specific-iq-tests-and-formats/what-is-the-olsat-test (anchor: "our OLSAT guide")

Hero photo: Empty classroom with chalkboard and rows of wooden desks (Ecole nationale des chartes, Paris). Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.5.