Eight MCPS High Schools Ranked among Newsweek’s Top 500 High Schools

June 21, 2011

Eight high schools in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) were listed among the top 500 in the nation, according to a new measuring system created by Newsweek to rate the success of a high school in “turning out college-ready (and life-ready) students.” The results of the publication’s revamped national rankings were released online on June 20, along with an explanation of the methodology used to rank the schools. Newsweek no longer publishes a national ranking based on Jay Mathew’s High School Challenge Index that appears in The Washington Post.

The national Newsweek results are shown in the chart below:

RANK	School	CITY	STATE	STUDENT/ TEACHER RATIO	GRAD RATE	AP/IB TESTS	COLLEGE BOUND (%)	AVG SAT	NEWS- WEEK SCORE
64	Poolesville	Poolesville	MD	13.1	99	4.9	87	1828	0.935
91	Winston Churchill	Potomac	MD	13.5	98	4.4	85	1824	0.791
102	Thomas S. Wootton	Rockville	MD	13.7	98	4.2	85	1822	0.747
117	Walt Whitman	Bethesda	MD	13.4	97	4.1	82	1879	0.692
145	Bethesda-Chevy Chase	Bethesda	MD	14.4	96	5.3	77	1734	0.603
215	Walter Johnson	Bethesda	MD	12.4	96	4.6	75	1754	0.494
242	Richard Montgomery	Rockville	MD	13.0	91	5.4	73	1759	0.459
468	Sherwood	Sandy Spring	MD	12.9	95	2.8	79	1616	0.135

Results also were provided by state. Of the 19 schools on the Maryland state list, eight were MCPS high schools, and seven of those MCPS schools were among the top ten in the state.

Each school’s score was determined using six weighted measures: four-year, on-time graduation rate (25%), immediate post-graduation college matriculation rate (25%), AP tests taken per graduate (25%), average SAT/ACT scores (10%), average AP/IB/AICE scores (10%), and AP courses offered (5%). According to Newsweek, officials at more than 10,000 public high schools across the country were contacted and asked to complete a survey requesting specific data from the 2009-2010 academic year. Self-reported data from approximately 1,100 schools were assessed to produce the final list of the top 500 high schools.

More information is available on the Newsweek web site at http://www.newsweek.com/content/newsweek/feature/2011/americas-best-high-schools.html

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