<p>The</a> Nation's Most Elite Public High Schools - Newsweek and The Daily Beast</p>
<p>Have any of you heard of these schools? They're pretty amazing because they combine the affordability of a public school with the quality of a private school.
What do you think? Do you think that it is good to provide top students with a top-notch education for free while regular public schools offer considerably less advantages?</p>
<p>I know all the ones in NYC, though Hunter College HS was a weird choice over Staten Island Tech or Lehman or any other specialized HS honestly.</p>
<p>[Best</a> High Schools Rankings | Top High Schools | US News](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings]Best”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings) has completely differennt schools. Rating high schools is very hard. The rankings work like an integer function with different levels and then drops</p>
<p>The point is these schools were excluded from the US News list because they compete on a different level. The list I posted is a list of the schools which were not included because, in the words of the original article, the other rankings are “designed to recognize schools that challenge ordinary students. These top-performing schools … were excluded from the list of top high schools because…they have few or no average students.”</p>
<p>thats also another reasons its hard to rate high schools…because there are many stats used to determine the rankings</p>
<p>“Have no average students”</p>
<p>This. NYC does its own school progress report and schools are ranked in the city - but there’s one section that offers like 14 points out of 100 to schools that are “closing the achievement gap” meaning low performing kids passing their required regents. So a school like SI Tech with 100% passing rate and graduation rate with NO average or below average students gets 0 bonus points here while a regular school with no admissions standards can get a lot and be ranked higher, as my school is.</p>
<p>I dunno, it all sounds like a load of bull to me.</p>
<p>Especially because almost all ‘top’ HS’s are specialty/geared towards a very specific subset of students.</p>
<p>And rightly so. You can’t expect a school with a lottery system to have an SAT average over 2000 or something, which Stuyvesant HS has.</p>
<p>These rankings are so silly. </p>
<p>For example, I looked at my state’s HS’s and mine isn’t even ranked, so it got stuck all the way on the bottom. The only reason why it doesn’t rank is because of 24% AP participation, because we only have 7 AP classes. I mean, what are you going to do about that?</p>
<p>The concept of ranking public schools is very very stupid. “Good” schools are just schools that serve a rich student body with few special Ed or Esl students, thus they have higher test scores, graduation rate, etc. “Bad” schools are the opposite.</p>
<p>EDIT: I’m talking about localized public schools that can’t choose their student body. Things with big city specialty schools may be different.</p>
<p>My high school is on both those lists. Btw, that link you posted isn’t the most updated link
I don’t agree with petlover1022’s comment. My schools has a big % of subs lunch so it obviously doesn’t serve the rich student body.</p>
<p>^^what are the ESL and Special Ed percentages?</p>
<p>Westshore is up there…well dang.</p>
<p>These schools offer students so many opportunities they would not have had without going to an expensive private school but they are public and free.</p>
<p>There’s a school near where I live (that I’m not going to) that’s just for science and technology, but you have to take the school exam, write an essay, and submit an application…it’s kind of like applying to college. Maybe these schools are like that. You have to take a test and apply to get in, so only the top students get accepted.</p>
<p>Hunter College HS is an extremely tough school to get into! And the students matriculate to some awesome schools. Ivy league and other highly selective schools in large numbers each year. They are governed by the CUNY system and NOT NYC board of Ed. Their honors classes are AP level.</p>
<p>I don’t see how it should count as a high-school if it’s managed by a college system, then, but meh, what do I know.</p>
<p>It’s college prep. I know someone who goes and I’m SO JEALOUS. It sounds really cool.</p>
<p>Yea I know someone who goes there too. You enter in 7th grade. 'Twas a test.</p>