Just in time for this weekend's administration of the SHSAT (specialized high school admissions test) -- and perfectly poised to increase the anxiety of the nearly 30,000 students who'll sit for the exam (and their parents), a new study says that variations in the high-stakes admission test, meant to prohibit cheating, scramble the results so significantly that many students who should have been offered seats in the specialized high schools were bounced instead. It also documented a preference for math and science whiz kids, over kids with across-the-board high scores -- the kids college admissions counselors call BWRKs, bright well-rounded kids who are strong students if not prodigies.

DOE testing guru Robert Tobias, now an education professor at NYU, takes the long view: "If the issue is, could some kids who score lower on the test be successful at these schools, quite frankly the answer would be yes." His circumspection is tepid comfort for the kids who will learn, come February, that they didn't cut the SHSAT mustard. But it's the honest truth, just the same.