A tough school is the one that one has to sweat to get As, rather than just given. Btw, there are schools in NY that have no AP classes offered and some offer only very few, still top rated schools in the state. They don’t have time to take lot of AP classes outside, because of the in-class work load.
You can find the high school ranking in your state, country to see where they stand. And take a close look at your school profile to see other metrics and where they are admitted for colleges in previous years. US News provides college readiness index which provides how well the kids are prepared for college. If the kid is smart and have ability to ramp-up the effort as required in college and beyond, it does not really matter what kind of school they attend, they will come through it.
One can find the latest US News ranking of any high school.
There are many school districts in a county in NJ. NJ also has schools at county level where students selected from various districts go and study in a very competitive environment. Here are two such example rankings.
Unless one’s goal and/or dream school is university of Miami, I would favor most BSMD programs. But if one doesn’t have a BSMD program as an option, then the UM program sounds promising.
How was his interview with NJMS? Don’t have to in detail, but was he happy after the interview? Just trying to assess how much of weightage does interview carry along with stats?
Vandy is a great school but I wouldn’t give up Stanford for Vandy.