Above: The annual Best High Schools rankings are out from U.S. News and World Report. Algonquin was outranked by some of our neighbors.
U.S. News and World Report issued its latest round of Best High Schools rankings. While Algonquin Regional moved up from last year, some of our neighboring high schools also moved up.
ARHS moved up in the national rankings from 1,422 last year to 1,136 for the 2021 report.
Within the schools ranked in Massachusetts, ARHS went from 60 to 54. Meanwhile, Shrewsbury Sr. High went from a lower ranking of 66 last year to outranking us this year at 43.
Other generally well ranked schools in our area shifted up or down in rankings but remained higher ranked than ARHS. (AMSA #2, Hopkinton #10, Westborough #28, and Ashland #38.)
While school rankings are interesting to look at, I’m generally skeptical of methodologies for measuring what’s the best.
This year, USNWR’s scoring is described as calculated based on College Readiness, Math and Reading Proficiency, Math and Reading Performance, Underserved Student Performance, College Curriculum Breadth, and Graduation Rate. (See overview right and read details here.)
Given that the percent of students that take AP tests appears to be a big factor in their rankings, it’s not surprising that our vocational school didn’t score high. (Assabet Valley Technical High School came in at #272 in the state.)
Rankings for ARHS and neighbors have moved around over the past five years. Here’s a look at the rankings since 2017*:
You can find more details on Algonquin’s 2021 ranking here.
Below are overviews of this year’s evaluations for well ranked neighbors.
You can look up more details on each of those schools and others here.
*In 2018, ARHS was excluded from the rankings based on a requirement in their methodology. You can read about that here.
