Vernon Hills Ranked Among Best Illinois High Schools

The latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report's “Best High Schools” report lists Vernon Hills High School as 18th among Illinois high schools — and as No. 463 in the nation.

Vernon Hills High School was awarded the publication's Gold Medal.

The 2012 rankings were released online May 8.

To produce the 2012 U.S. News & World Report “Best High Schools” rankings, U.S. News teamed up with the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research, one of the largest behavioral and social science research organizations in the world.

AIR implemented U.S. News' comprehensive rankings methodology, which is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are collegebound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators, according to an explanation of the methodology used in U.S. News to determine the best high school rankings.

Here's a look at how other local high schools ranked in Illinois:

• Libertyville High School, 16th
• Stevenson High School, fifth
• Lake Forest High School, 15th