<p>Every metric I've ever seen to rank high schools has been wholly based on one type of test score or another. Does anyone actually think this provides a clear picture of which schools are actually the best? It just seems stupid to me.</p>
<p>For example, certain private high schools in my city are exempt from the state Regents exams, since their curriculum is deemed by the state to be sufficiently rigorous. These schools are often completely ignored by the local paper's rankings, which focus entirely on Regents scores. </p>
<p>stupid Stupid STUPID</p>
<p>A lot of rankings are also AP scores. You might argue the nature of ANY kinds of rankings to be subjective. But they are what they are, and to be taken with a grain of salt. Any person whose sole perception and subsequent opinion on a school is rankings-based is silly. I dnt believe any HS is necessarily "the best." It's what you make out of the situation. Some otherwise brilliant and well-doing kids would burn out and die at Andover. But would graduate 1st at a public, less cutthroat HS. In this case, the latter is <em>better</em> for that student. Just like college. Less with HS, but in the U.S. opportunities exist for whoever is willing to look for them - whether they live in rural Alaska, or NYC, which is why top colleges accept students from ALL schools - not only the elite few that rankings decide to list as the "best."</p>
<p>The absolute worst is Jay Matthews' "challenge index" one, where schools garner favorable rankings just from having students take the exams, regardless of the actual scores earned. Measures nothing useful.</p>
<p>Of course, they're not a whole lot stupider than college rankings...</p>