What the Per Scholas Software Engineering Assessment Actually Looks Like
The Per Scholas Software Engineering Assessment is a screening tool used to evaluate whether applicants have the foundational skills needed for their bootcamp-style programs. It covers basic programming logic, some mathematics, and technical reading comprehension. The test is typically administered online and timed. You are not expected to be an expert going in. They are looking for baseline aptitude, not production-ready knowledge. Most people taking this are transitioning into tech from completely different backgrounds. Retail, hospitality, military, education — that is the typical profile. The assessment is designed to filter for people who can handle a fast-paced technical curriculum, not to trick anyone.
Per Scholas Software Engineering Assessment: Where to Find It and How to Prepare
If you have been accepted into a program or are in the application pipeline, your admissions counselor will send you the link to take the assessment. There is no public standalone download or official PDF to grab off a website. The test lives on their internal screening platform. If you do not have a link, reach out to your counselor directly rather than trying to hunt it down yourself. The format usually includes three sections. The first is coding fundamentals, which means questions about variables, loops, conditionals, and basic functions — mostly in Python or JavaScript. The second section tests math, covering algebra, percentages, and basic probability. The third is a reading comprehension portion with technical passages. You get around 60 to 90 minutes total depending on the center. My practical advice is to spend two weeks prepping. Not 10 hours a day. Two weeks at maybe 45 minutes a day. Go through a free Python basics course on Codecademy or freeCodeCamp. Do a couple chapters of high school algebra review. The math section trips up more people than the coding section. I watched it happen repeatedly. People overprepare the code and underprepare the math.
There are a few practice resources that approximate the real thing. HackerRank has a Python fundamentals track that mirrors the style. Basic SAT math prep books work fine for the quantitative section. Do not waste time on advanced data structures. You do not need to know red-black trees for this. Stick to the basics. I remember one candidate who got hung up on a question that asked about operator precedence in a simple expression. The answer required knowing that multiplication happens before addition without parentheses. That person had written code for years but had never studied the formal rules. I had the same experience early on. The workaround was to just print out the standard order of operations and memorize it. It takes five minutes and it saves you from losing points on questions that feel obvious once you know what they are testing. Another thing nobody tells you: the assessment is adaptive in some centers. That means if you answer early questions correctly, the later questions get harder. If you struggle, they ease up slightly. This affects strategy. Do not panic when a question feels impossibly hard midway through. It might actually mean you are doing well enough to hit the harder tier. The reverse is also true. Easy questions in the middle do not necessarily mean you are failing. It could just mean the adaptation is adjusting downward.
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The biggest pitfall I see is people treating the assessment like a job interview test. It is not. They do not grade you against other applicants in a curve. They compare you against a fixed threshold. You can score poorly and still get in. The program is remedial in nature. They expect gaps. The threshold is usually around 60 to 70 percent depending on the cohort and center. Scoring below that does not mean you are rejected outright. It often means you go through an additional prep module before starting the full curriculum. One thing the assessment does not measure is your ability to ship software. It does not test Git, debugging, deployment, or anything related to actual development workflows. If you are confident in those areas, that confidence will not show up in your score. That is by design. The assessment is narrow on purpose. It is a gatekeeper, not a comprehensive evaluation. If you take the assessment and do not meet the threshold, do not assume you are out. Contact your counselor and ask about the remedial path. Some centers allow a retake after a prescribed study period. The timeline varies. It could be two weeks. It could be a month. There is no universal policy.
The assessment link itself is not publicly downloadable because it is tied to your applicant account. If you have lost access, log back into the Per Scholas applicant portal or email your program advisor. Do not try to find third-party copies. Those are outdated and sometimes incorrect. The test content changes slightly between cohorts. My recommendation for the actual test day: sleep well the night before, eat something, and do not leave blank. There is no penalty for wrong answers on most versions, so guessing is better than skipping. Read every question twice. The reading comprehension passages are longer than they need to be, and the actual question is often buried in the third paragraph. People skim and pick the answer that sounds right without verifying it against the passage. The assessment matters, but it does not define your outcome in the program. I have seen people with low assessment scores finish near the top of their cohort. I have also seen high scorers struggle later. The assessment predicts initial readiness, not long-term success. Spend the two weeks preparing, take it seriously, and then move on.
