People love ranking things; which player scores the most, which animal runs the fastest, which building is the tallest. Even for more subjective categories, we love to find and evaluate the best. This extends to education as well; we’ve written previously about the various ways in which the best colleges are ranked.
In this article, we’re going to explore another aspect of educational rankings: high schools. Much like how there are many ways and rankers for colleges, so too are there many rankings and metrics for high schools. We’re going to start by looking at the methodology of these rankings, and some shortcomings of them generally; then we’re going to go through the most popular rankings of US high schools, to give you a guide to all the ways they are weighed and measured. Let’s get started!
How do High School Rankings Work?
The purpose of high school is multifaceted, because its original purpose has evolved. There was a time when a high school education alone was enough to prepare a student for a career, and only a small percentage of students went on to further education. Now, the purpose for most high schools is to prepare students for the next step in their educational journey, be that college or trade school.
Thus how effective a certain high school is depends on what you think the role of high schools is. Most rankings are aimed at students and parents interested in applying to colleges, and so are evaluated on that metric. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does impact the rankings in some interesting ways.
Many rankings also divide schools into categories, allowing you to view the best schools in a certain geographic region, or only the best public schools, or only the best private schools. In combined lists, the top schools are often private schools. This is because of what metrics they use.
By their nature, private schools are selective about who they enroll, while public schools for the most part are not. Many top private schools have application processes reminiscent of college applications, and some are nearly as competitive. They are allowed to only take the best prepared students, and have the financial means to provide them with all of the resources necessary to succeed.
Public schools, in contrast, generally enroll everyone in their district, with some limited exceptions in the form of selective enrollment magnet schools. Thus while the very brightest students at well-performing public schools have many of the same resources and opportunities as their peers in private schools, the average performance at public schools tends to lag behind.
We go more in depth into how you can tell whether or not a school has the right opportunities for you in our guide to choosing a high school. Our purpose here is to explain why private schools tend to universally dominate the rankings of the top rated high schools, regardless of who is doing the ranking.
Finally, some specialized high schools are not ranked highly, but provide wonderful opportunities for students in specific niches. This is especially true for high schools which focus on the arts. While these schools tend to have strong academic programs, these are not their only focus. If you are interested in performing arts, then you should look for arts high schools specifically, rather than viewing their rankings compared to their peers.
The Different High School Rankings
There are many different organizations which rank high schools. We will go through each in turn, and cover the benefits and shortcomings of their particular approach, and discuss the methodology they use to get their specific results.
US News
Just as with college rankings, US News has the most cited list of high school rankings in the US. Their rankings are subdivided specifically; while there is an overall list, they also provide the best high schools by both state and metropolitan area. Unlike with colleges, almost everyone attends high school close to home, so knowing the best high schools close to your location is often the most important thing to be able to judge.
Separating public schools by state also makes sense generally. Educational policies are set at the state level, and the standards students in Mississippi need to meet are very different from those in Pennsylvania. Schools are best compared against their peers, and for public schools, that means comparing them at the state level.
The methodology used by US News considers six different factors, each of which has its own weighting. These are combined to determine each school’s overall score. They do include information on how a school performs relative to both its district and state. This can be useful, since it lets you know how good a school is in its circumstances, and whether you should look outside that district for educational excellence.
The factors they consider are:
- College readiness (30%). This is calculated based on the school’s participation in AP or IB testing.
- College curriculum breadth (10%). This is based on students taking and earning qualifying scores on multiple AP exams.
- State assessment proficiency (20%). This is based on how many students are proficient based on their state’s standardized testing. This is another reason why comparing schools between states is problematic; each state has their own proficiency standards.
- State assessment performance (20%). This measures how well students at the school do on state assessments compared to predicted results.
- Underserved student performance (10%). This measures the success of underserved and low income students on state assessments. This is measured compared to the median performance for their state.
- Graduation rate (10%). This measures what percentage of entering freshman graduate four years later.
These rankings are good for a rough view of which schools do the best on a few select metrics, but are a very broad overview, and do not cover all of the quirks within a school. They are better at highlighting which districts over or underperform within a state, which many parents want to consider when deciding where to move.
Niche
Originally created just to rank colleges, Niche expanded its rankings to other areas of education, including K-12 schools. They now have a ranking of the best highschools in the US, and allow you to narrow this by both location and category, so you can view just the best religious schools in an area for example.
Their methodology for this list is interesting, as they don’t go into the fine details of how they do it. Schools are generally evaluated based on the following weighted categories:
- Academics (60%). This broad category combines performance on state assessments, college enrollment success, and survey results from Niche users.
- Culture & Diversity (12.5%). This is based on demographic data and survey results.
- Surveys on Overall Experience (10%). This is based entirely on surveys and reviews completed by Niche users on their experience with a school.
- Teachers Grade (10%). Based on teacher salaries, absenteeism, and survey responses on teachers.
- Clubs & Activities (2.5%). Based on expenditures per student and survey responses.
- Resources & Facilities (2.5%). Based on expenditures per student, staffing data, and survey responses.
- Sports (2.5%). Based on the number of sports, number of participants, and survey responses.
One thing stands out immediately, namely that a significant portion of their data comes from survey responses submitted to Niche. While these can be a great source of data, they are hardly unbiased, and may not paint a complete picture of a school. That said, Niche is one of the best resources to find reviews of high schools from students and parents who have interacted with them.
As with all product reviews online however, take everything you read with a grain of salt. Niche is a great supplement to other rankings, but the overreliance on survey data makes the results they get questionable.
Newsweek
Newsweek just uses Niche rankings, with some additional commentary provided. This is useful at times, but we recommend just going to Niche in the first place.
GreatSchools
GreatSchools is a nonprofit organization that ranks and compares K-12 schools, with a focus on public schools especially (though they also compare and rank private and charter schools).
They rank schools out of 10 on a number of different metrics, with 10 being the best and 1 the worst. There is an overall summary rating, and then four different categories:
- Student progress. This measures whether students progress during their time at the school, based on their performance on state standardized tests. This is sometimes swapped out for academic progress, depending on what level of data the state and school make available for students.
- College readiness. This measures graduation data, student success on the SAT and ACT, and student participation and success in advanced courses, such as AP and IB coursework and exams.
- Equity rating. This measures both the performance of disadvantaged students at the school, and any gaps which exist between their performance and that of their peers.
- Test score rating. This ranks schools based on their performance on state standardized tests, seeing how many students are proficient based on the standards of the state.
These rankings are somewhat broad, but do serve as a useful way to quickly compare the strengths of different schools. This works best for schools in the same town or state, as different educational standards between states can impact these rankings significantly.
Final Thoughts
High school is an important time for students, as it is the culmination of their educational journey on one hand, and the preparation for the next step on the other. Here students begin to understand just what they might want to do afterwards, and the support they receive in high school sets them up for all else they will undertake going forward. The high school they attend matters greatly for this, and for their chances of attending a top college.
We hope that this article has helped you understand the various rankings of high schools out there, along with their strengths and shortcomings. These rankings can be helpful, but do not give you the full picture of a school, and how it might support your student. If you want help finding the right highschool, or managing the transition to it, schedule a free consultation with us today. We have a long experience helping students find the right academic home, and are always happy to hear from you.
