If you haven't gotten your ticket for this weekend's specialized high school exam, don't panic. You'll be able to sit for the test without it, according to the Department of Education. The DOE posted a notice on its website saying that all scheduled students will be "welcomed and tested" even without a ticket. It also posted a list oftest locations and times (pdf) for every middle school.

This week, some schools reported they had trouble printing tickets and others said they didn't get the tickets at all.

At Mark Twain middle school, it took the staff a day and a half to print out 350 tickets for its 8th-graders because of a glitch in the system, said Parent Coordinator Delgermaa Ganbaatar. "It has been very stressful. The system couldn't handle all the requests at once." The school finished printing at noon Friday, she said, and got them into the hands of students before they went home. Mark Twain sends more students annually to Stuyvesant High School than any other middle school.

David Weinreb, the 8th-grade guidance counselor at The Equity Project, a charter school in Washington Heights, said on Friday afternoon that he didn't get any tickets for students who had registered. 

Each year nearly 30,000 8th- and 9th-graders sign up to take the annual Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, for entrance into one of the city's eight specialized exam high schools. 

In addition to the notice posted on its website, the DOE sent a letter to all middle schools assuring them that "students will be able to test for the SHSAT this weekend at their scheduled time. If a student who is scheduled does not have a ticket, he or she will be welcomed and tested. We have posted test sites for each middle school on the Specialized High Schools website."

This weekend's test is for all 8th-grade students, except for students who need special accommodations. If a students misses this weekend's exam, the makeup date is November 16.