We’re Number 305!
My high school ranks as the 305th best in the country, according to Newsweek. Their methodology is, as Steve points out, suspect at best. Here’s how they did it:
the number of Advanced Placement (AP) and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) tests taken by all students at a school in 2004, divided by the number of graduating seniors.
So if you want to boost your ranking, you have two options: either get more graduating seniors to take IB/AP tests, OR…
Graduate fewer seniors. Wouldn’t a school with a huge achievement gap between AP/IB “fast track” students and those “I could be a ditchdigger?“-types who Brian taught in “The Family Guy” on Sunday outrank a school full of Lake Wobegon-esque students who are all above-average but not outstanding? And doesn’t that tell you all you need to know about trusting Newsweek to rank the top thousand or so out of nearly 28,000 American high schools?