<p>aquamarinesea–basically that list shows schools that require their students to take an AP or IB test, it’s meaningless. The so called “top” high school in our area has a 48% graduation rate…great school–but you know, those 20 IB kids sure are good students :D.</p>
<p>“Best high school” from a going-to-college standpoint is likely best measured by how its graduates do in college – able to handle work in desired majors (i.e. not all switching to “gut” majors because they did poorly in their original majors), no need for remedial courses, good graduation rates.</p>
<p>However, graduates from high school do also go to other destinations besides college. “Best high school” in each context would be how well the graduates do in those other destinations.</p>
<p>“Best high school” overall would be one where graduates do well in any of the post-graduation destinations, and are not prevented (by lack of course offerings or quality) from some of the options.</p>
<p>My former high school had a pleathora of 4.0s but I still considered it extremely competitive. I would bet at least 20% of our class had a 4.0, actually. We did not rank- the official and probably real reason was that if someone tried, you would have to go down to the fifth decimal place or something. There were an outrageous number of hard working and smart kids. Sure, not every kid loaded up on APs, but most students graduated with at least 3-5; the most advanced kids often ended up with 13 + APs and a few college credit classes (equal to APs). The average was probably 6 or 7. </p>
<p>It’s a little crazy but the culture was quite…academic and college focused.</p>
<p>Edit: and most people did well on APs, went to good schools and did decently on the SAT</p>
<p>Steve, my DDs school was in the top listing and they did not require anyone to take AP tests, most kids wanted to, and most kids wanted to get at least a 4. My DDs school not only had a 99% graduation rate but a 95% going on to 4 year school rate.</p>
<p>The high school I went to would probably be classified as “highly competitive”. It had the highest test scores for any open enrollment school in the state. It also was huge and had a very rigidly defined level system with very little flexibility, which meant that the kids who hasn’t started in the highest level would not have the opportunity to take many of the AP classes offered later on (students rarely took APs before junior year). There was also a very high attrition rate from the top level from year to year. I think less than 60% of the kids who started on the track to BC calculus actually ended up taking that course. There was also grade deflation. I was in an AP English course where out of two sections of ~25 sections each, there were about 4-5 A’s. No one in the grade had a 4.0, and I myself got into an Ivy League school with a 3.6 unweighted (although because I had taken the most challenging curriculum my class rank was probably around top 5%). Every year in math, I struggled to get a B because I could never finish the tests (I found out later in college that I actually wasn’t “bad” at math as I had accepted earlier) but I scored a 5 on Calc BC and an 800 on the Math II subject test. Even though I got into my top choice school, in general there were always many smart kids with high test scores who didn’t get into a lot of schools most likely because of their grades. I did seem though that people did better with liberal art colleges as the kids I know who go to places like Middlebury and Amherst often didn’t take as rigorous courses or rank as high as the typical kids who went on to the Ivys.
Overall, going to this type of high school helped me develop great time management and work habits. It also has helped me interact and develop great relationships with my professors at college, since my high school was so big, I had to assert myself in order to be heard at all. But while I was there I felt like I was trapped in a cage and that I was not smart enough or good enough in regards to anything. People who viewed my situation from the outside seem to think this is odd, but this is genuinely how I felt. I have always been a person who marches to their own drummer, and my high school made it very hard for me. I don’t know if I would do it again. Sometimes I feel jealous of kids who went to less competitive high schools because they seem to have had a more positive experience. One could argue that they didn’t have as many resources, but that is actually not completely true. When high schools are very large and competive, only the people who are deemed to be the “best” in a certain area have access to these opportunities. I may have been a good student, but I wouldn’t have even had a chance to play on a sports team because they all cut people.</p>
<p>I’m not even going to comment on the Midwest bashing . . .</p>
<p>ACT had published research on grade inflation. Granted, it uses self reporting of student GPAs by test takers, but it is interesting. You can find it in the research section of the ACT website. Honestly, I thought it’d be worse than it was.</p>
<p>"Clearly if your school is getting 20% of the kids to the top schools, you are in a top notch district. "</p>
<p>for 20% of the kids to go to top schools, at least 20% need to apply to those schools. Here in Big 10 country, many top notch students still don’t consider anything other than the state flagship. Cheaper, closer to home, and they don’t perceive the omg-social-advantage that kids on the east coast perceive.</p>
<p>Most kids at our high school will not apply to “tippy top” schools. Most who are going straight to 4 year are focused on one of the public state biggies. We might have a few for Rice.</p>
<p>Regarding the GPA - test score correlation, let me throw this out there - My S and D have had a majority of the same classes for their entire hs career. S and D have almost identical GPAs. BUT, S had significantly higher test scores on both ACT and SAT - in line with what the test scores “should” be for that GPA. But she happens to be a horrible test taker! . In addition, although their GPAs are similar, she works hard for those grades…he does not. And honestly, I anticipate that her freshman year grades in college will be better than his for that very reason…</p>
<p>Collegefortwins–sounds very much like our twins, although their test scores are only 2 points off. S never studies, D has to work harder for her grades, but she isn’t studying for 5 hours/night to get those grades either. I think freshman year will be a bit of a shock for S. It’s hard to say though. D has some major medical issues and has missed a lot of school so that plays into it as well. They have taken all of the same classes except for one history class.</p>
<p>If you want to compare states and ACT/SAT combined scores, 9 of the top 10 states and 15 out of the top 20 are in the Midwest…4 of the top 20 are on the East Coast…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.deseretnews.com/top/777/43/Massachusetts-Which-state-has-the-highest-average-ACT-and-SAT-scores.html[/url]”>http://www.deseretnews.com/top/777/43/Massachusetts-Which-state-has-the-highest-average-ACT-and-SAT-scores.html</a></p>
<p>Steve, the coastal states are, imho, much less homogenous. They have many recent immigrants and poverty level students and they also have many high achievers. They have the best of HSs (private and public, such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Sciene) and the worst. Averages can be decieving.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the International Academy, Bloomfield Hills MI (ranked #5) basically skims the best students out of the surrounding school districts. If you are able to cherry pick the students, it stands to reason your stats will be through the roof.</p>
<p>Movemetoo, there is more than one to skim. Yes, NYC has by exam schools. But even in the better burbs, you have to be able to afford to live there.</p>
<p>kayf—the ACT/SAT comparison is looking at kids that are going off to college across the country. Immigrant status is a non-factor…</p>
<p>Re #47: That’s because there isn’t one. To pick on one state, for many (maybe most) business or professional careers in Ohio, you’re probably better off from a jobs and networking standpoint to go to Ohio State than to an Ivy. Kids who think they want to stay in-state after they graduate may actually be ill-advised to head east for college – unless the FA makes it a cost wash.</p>
<p>movemetoo - International Academy Bloomfiled MI does not cherry pick the best. They are just a lottery school. Any one who is average can get in if they are lucky! Also, they have no athletics… Not sure why they are ranked so high while students are just mediocre.</p>
<p>I know people who live in apartments or tiny houses so their kids can attend Scarsdale schools. But the wealth thing can be an issue, one friend complained that her kids couldn’t keep up with ski trips to Europe and the like. Our high school was on the Newsweek list the first couple of years it came out, then other high schools started gaming the system and we fell off of it. I don’t have a problem with that - we are an pretty good high school, but there is huge room for improvement. But I don’t think that high SAT scores or high number of AP tests should be the way a high school is judged. Not every student needs to get 700s on the SAT for a school to be serving the needs of its students - especially if you have a substantial immigrant population which we do.</p>
<p>Of course not. For example - there are precious few places in Chicago you couldn’t get to with a U of I degree, and none you couldn’t get to with a Northwestern degree. What is perennially amusing to me is how many people don’t understand that the upper middle class professional lives lived in Chicago and St Louis and Mpls and so forth look pretty much like the upper middle class lives lived in New York and Phila and Boston and so forth. At one fundamental level, it’s all the same - it’s just that it’s achievable out here at a higher rate without elite school status, so the relative bump is different. I do think on CC that there is a big contingent of those who don’t realize how much their upper middle class NJ or NY suburb isn’t all that different from Midwestern or Southern big city suburbs.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl–well, it’s hard to live the NY lifestyle when we have to pump the water and feed the chickens and study by candlelight with our slate tablets you know…:D.</p>
<p>More importantly, the middle class lifestyle is a much easier life in the Midwest as is the lower income lifestyle…</p>
<p>Most of the top public schools are magnet schools that cherry pick the best kids. And, yes, those suburban schools, like Scarsdale, Rye, Winnetka, that have great public schools tend to be very expensive places to live with just about zero low cost housing. There is a direct relationship, a very strong one between family income and academic achievement that is pretty much a constant in academic research. Yes, there are outliers and exceptions to the rule, but the line is very clear whit few and faded points of that line. </p>
<p>I’ve yet to see a list of public high schools listed by SAT/ACT scores, highest to lowest nationally. Our area comes up with a list like that each year with the local schools, both public and private. Some schools on the national US News and other lists only weigh that as one factor. There are schools that I know on that list that are not where savvy people here have any desire to send their kids. Also a lot of emphasis is being put on the AP test program so schools that probably have no business doing so, are adding them into their curriculum just to get those points. If you are looking for schools that tend to get a lot of kids into the most selective colleges, you have to sniff out those lists carefully. </p>
<p>The best indicator I have seen for coming up with the chances for a kid to get into a selective school is the Naviance data for students coming from that kid’s high school if there are sufficient number of applicants regularly from that given school. Again the lines and clusters are remarkably formed.</p>