Barrington High School 'Beats the Odds,' Makes Newsweek’s Top High Schools

BARRINGTON, IL - Barrington High School has been ranked among the top high schools in America, according to the 2016 rankings by Newsweek released on Thursday morning.

Barrington received a ranking of No. 156 on this year’s list. Last year, Barrington High was ranked No. 161 on Newsweek’s list and in 2014, received a No. 127 rank nationally.

Northside College Preparatory High School in Chicago landed in the top spot for Illinois schools, with a No. 8 rank nationally.

• Click here to read about how other Illinois schools ranked on Newsweek's list.

The top school in America for 2016, according to Newsweek, is Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia.

Barrington High School was also recognized on Newsweek's “beating the odds” list with a No. 142 spot.

Newsweek used six factors to create its top schools list, weighing each measurement to create a “college readiness index.” The rankings show how prepared students are for college by the time they leave high school.
Those measurements and their weight include:

• Holding power: 10 percent
• Ratio of counselor/full-time equivalent to student enrollment: 10 percent
• Weighted SAT/ACT: 17.5 percent
• Weighted AP/IB/dual enrollment composite: 17.5 percent
• Graduation rate: 20 percent
• College enrollment rate: 25 percent

In all, 6,477 of the nation’s 15,819 public high schools met the criteria to be considered in Newsweek’s rankings.

For "beating the odds," each school’s college readiness scores were adjusted for how they compared against other schools with similar percentages of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.