<p>The ranking is solely based on ratio of AP tests administered to graduating seniors. Kinda bizarre that it doesn’t appear as if the ranking takes into account how many kids pass even one exam. My particular high school has a reasonably high index (over 4) but the percentage of students having even one passing score is well below 50. That doesn’t say too great of things about my high school.</p>
<p>These rankings are about Real Estate pricing - there is a class of parents who will do anything to be ranked #1 in anything. </p>
<p>I used to live in a little country town that cared about its schools. When the Massachusetts MCAS state exams were instituted, it came out as #1 in 8th-grade test scores. We old time farmers and carpenters suddenly saw an influx of “trophy” wives raising “trophy” kids and RE prices shot through the roof. That was a scary group of people! The great school become a great school with a stress level that lead to kids throwing up from nerves before the MCAS exams. When you put a pediatric-gerontologist on speed dial, you next move is to put a for sale sign in front of the house.</p>
<p>In your opinion what, if any, bearing would being on the list have on college admissions? I keep hearing over and over how DS’s school’s difficulty will be taken into account when he applies, but it’s all hearsay, all local talk, nothing factual to back it up. With a 3.8 needed to make Top 25% it’s hella hard for even an above-average student. Thoughts??</p>
<p>My school isn’t on here, but a nearby school with worse academics is on it simply because it offers more AP courses and thus tests. I think the methodology here is just a little flawed.</p>
<p>It is interesting the number of Florida schools that are highly ranked. On average, Fl high schools are below average, but the better schools are quite good indeed…a state with a large standard deviation in quality.</p>
<p>The rationale for the methodology is data from colleges showing that college success is more strongly correlated with rigor of high school curriculum then with SAT scores or GPA. Just the learned habit of killer problem sets, budgeting time for mountains of reading, and kicking out essays at the drop of a hat is the key to college success.</p>
<p>AP, IB, and other top curriculum teach the habit of academic success. This ranking methodology, though arguably flawed, is one way of objectively ranking rigor of curriculum. Note - it limits tests to those passed with 3, 4, or 5. It also knocked off the top the school with astronomical SAT/ACT averages. This is the list of schools accessible to the average hardworking student, not schools that only take rocket scientists.</p>
<p>You’d think they’d come up with a legitimate way of ranking schools, rather than by measuring % of students that take APs, # of subsidized lunches, etc.</p>
<p>My kids’ HS has been in the 90s for years - dropped into the 170s this year. I don’t know why - Son did his part and took 5 AP exams last year.</p>
<p>Newsweek says that the reason they don’t evaluate on the number of passing scores on the AP tests is that then the schools would severely limit the kids who can take the AP classes/tests.</p>
<p>As others have stated, the methodology here is clearly wrong.
Take two schools: one has all their students take an AP test for as many subjects as possible, leading to an array of 1, 2, and 3s. The other has students take AP tests only if they are in the advanced placement course, leading to many 3, 4, and 5s. But the scores don’t matter, only the number of students that take the test. This leads many schools to almost force students to take the AP test, even if they are wholly unprepared. </p>
<p>Does the number of students taking an AP test matter? Yes, but only if they are receiving good scores.</p>