OPRF Snubbed on Newsweek List?

The official motto for is "Those things that are best."

Someone better tell Newsweek.

The national magazine this week published its annual list of America's Best High Schools, and noticeably absent is OPRF, which has made the cut each year since 2005. Overall, 30 Illinois schools, almost all from the Chicago suburbs, made the list.

In a break from years past, Newseek overhauled its methodology for compiling its list, which includes 500 high schools. This year, the magazine compiled a panel of education experts to "develop a yardstick that fully reflects a school’s success turning out college-ready (and life-ready) students."

They scored schools using six categories:

Graduation rate (25%)
College matriculation rate (25%)
AP tests taken per graduate (25%)
Average SAT/ACT scores (10%)
Average AP/IB/AICE scores (10%)
AP courses offered (5%)

According to explanatory story on the methodology, the magazine said it reached out to officials with more than 10,000 American high schools to start the selection process.

In order to be considered for our list, each school had to complete a survey requesting specific data from the 2009-2010 academic year. In total, more than 1,100 schools were assessed to produce the final list of the top 500 high schools.

The survey requirement clearly irked a few commenters on the magazine's website. To wit: "A lot of very good schools are focused on educating their students, not filling out surveys and sending scores to Newsweek for lists like this one."