Birmingham Area Best Schools: New Niche Rankings

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Indian Springs School is the top-ranked school in the Birmingham metro, according to new rankings released Monday by Niche. The company gave Indian Springs an overall grade of A+ and ranked it the best in the state.

Here are the best schools in the Birmingham area and their rankings within the state:

1. Indian Springs School, No. 1
2. Altamont School, No. 2
3. Mountain Brook High School, No. 4
4. Homewood High School, No. 7
5. Spain Park High School, No. 10
6. Mountain Brook Junior High School, No. 15
7. Cherokee Bend Elementary School, No. 16
8. Mountain Brook Elementary School, No. 22
9. Vestavia Hills High School, No. 26
10. Crestline Elementary School, No. 27

Niche looked at more than 94,000 public schools, 4,100 private schools and nearly 11,000 school districts across the country. The rankings are meant to help parents and students find schools that best fit their needs.

“Unlike traditional school rankings, which rely almost exclusively on test scores and academic performance, Niche’s rankings provide a real-life view of what it’s like to attend a given school,” the company said in a news release.

Comments from current students, alumni, and parents are included in the analysis, as well as observations about things like campus life, extracurricular activities, sports options, diversity, and programs for gifted and special needs students.

“Parents and students need more than test-score data,” Luke Skurman, CEO at Niche, said in the news release. “They need to understand what it’s really like to attend a school before they start the application or registration process.”

For the first time, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, were ranked the top private and public high schools, respectively, in the nation.

2020 top public high schools:

1. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology
2. Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
3. Walter Payton College Prep
4. Stuyvesant High School
5. Bergen County Academies

2020 top private high schools

1. Phillips Exeter Academy
2. St. Mark’s School of Texas
3. Phillips Academy
4. The College Preparatory School
5. Trinity School

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.