Blog · California · October 2, 2026
Twenty-five California high schools give their entrance exam on the same Saturday
On Saturday, January 9, 2027, twenty-five California private high schools give their entrance exam. Same morning, up and down the state.
Bellarmine, Mitty, Presentation, De La Salle, Carondelet, Bishop O'Dowd, Moreau, Saint Francis, Salesian, Christian Brothers, Palma, JSerra, Chadwick, Sacred Heart, St. Augustine, The Bishop's School and others.
Two Saturdays later, on January 23, twenty-three more schools test. On January 16, fifteen do.
Count the whole month and fifty-eight California schools hold an entrance exam in January. At most Catholic high schools that test is the HSPT. Some independent schools use the ISEE or SSAT instead, and a few run their own.
Here is the number that actually matters to a family reading this in October. January 9 is fourteen weeks away.
We tell families to plan on six to twelve weeks of real preparation for any standardized test. Not cramming — weekly work, with time to take a practice test, see what went wrong, and fix it before the real one. Fourteen weeks out is comfortable. It is the point where this is still a plan and not a scramble.
By late November it is a short runway. By Christmas it is two weeks and a holiday.
Three things we would check this month:
- Which test your schools actually use. Do not assume it is the HSPT. Look at each school's own admissions page.
- Whether your child's date is the school's only sitting. Several schools offer two or three; some offer one.
- Whether the school needs anything before the test — a few ask for registration, or an accommodations request, weeks ahead. Bellarmine's accommodations deadline is October 30.
One more thing worth knowing. Several schools run their own prep sessions in the fall and early winter, and those fill. If a school on your list offers one, that is usually the cheapest look at the real format your family will get.
Our California tracker lists every published entrance-exam date for 265 private schools, next to that school's deadlines and decision day. Each date comes from the school's own page, with a link to where it says it.
You can see the whole January at highschoolreach.com/california. For help with the test itself, that is what we do at prepgurus.com.