Last week, Niche.com came out with it’s “2024” school rankings. Algonquin and Southborough schools (public and private) were again in the top tier — but not as highly ranked as some neighbors.
I never take these rankings very seriously, since I’m not convinced by the metrics used. But it is something the community likes to know, so for what it is worth. . .
It appears that Massachusetts continued to outperform the country, since our schools were ranked higher nationally than for the state.
In national rankings, Algonquin Regional High School and Trottier Middle School continued to be in the top rankings for public high/middle schools. And, although not all were ranked, Southborough elementary schools received high marks.
ARHS was again in the top 3% of public high schools in the nation with an A+ grade. It moved up two notches in the state since the “2023 list” released in 2022 to #23 of 663 high schools.
ARHS was outranked by #8 Hopkinton and #12 Westborough. Lower ranking neighbors were AMSA (The Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School) at #29, Ashland at #39, Framingham at #79, and Marlborough at #112.
Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School was included in the public high school rankings at #152, but there was no vocational-specific category. (Keep in mind that rankings of high schools include metrics related to getting into college rather than starting a career.) For some reason, neighboring Keefe Tech wasn’t on the list (although it did receive other rankings.)
Trottier was in the top 2.2% of middle schools in the nation with an A. It was #29 of 464 in the state.
For the lower schools:
- Woodward School – graded A+, #26 of 988 elementary schools, #3 for public school teachers.
- Neary School was graded A, #68
- Finn School had the lowest ranking, which I believe is based on the fact that students in PreK-1st grade don’t have MCAS scores. It came in at #346 with an A-.
Although some of our neighbors got top marks for their school district, Neither Southborough or Northborough were ranked since our K-12 schools are broken into 3 districts. (Hopkinton was #1 and Westborough #12.)
For private schools, Southborough based St. Mark’s was #6 for best private high school in the state and #2 for best Christian high school in Massachusetts.
Fay School wasn’t in any rankings. (Perhaps because it covers grades K-9, it didn’t fit neatly in the website’s categories.) However, they did assign it an overall grade of A+.
The methodologies differ by ranking organization. Click here for details on the recent ARHS rankings by US News & World Reports and Boston Magazine.
Under Niche’s methology information, the site explains that many indicators used. The rankings incorporate surveys, reviews, and self-reported data.
