Naperville School Makes Newsweek’s Top Public High Schools List for 2016

Just in time for the start of the school year, Newsweek released its annual list Thursday of the top public high schools in America for 2016.

And on that list is one Naperville school and one Aurora school. Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville ranked at No. 154 and Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora came in at 260.

Waubonsie Valley placed at No. 393 last year, moving up more than 100 slots. Neuqua Valley did not place last year.

Despite coming in last year at No. 58, Naperville North failed to make the list this year. The same goes for Naperville Central, which was ranked at No. 98 in 2015. Neither school made the list in 2014, but in 2013 North was listed at 285 and Central placed at 260.

Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley also made Newsweek’s Beating the Odds list. For the “beating the odds” rankings, a 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.

Waubonsie came in at 171 and Neuqua ranked at 252.

Newsweek’s rankings of the best public high schools in the country stand apart from other attempts to rank school performance. Newsweek uses legitimate and objective measurements to put together its annual ranking of the country’s best high schools.

Newsweek looked at six measurements and weighted them to achieve a “college readiness index.” The rankings show how well high schools prepare students for college.

Those measurements and their weight are:

• 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.

Newsweek used school performance data from the National Center for Education Statistics to narrow the list of schools.

Of those 6,477 schools, 4,760 were considered for the overall rankings, while 4,452 made the cut for another list of schools “beating the odds.” (Many schools made both lists.)

To see the full list of Illinois schools that made the list, click here. For the full list of schools across the country, visit Newsweek.