2 MD Schools In Top 50 Sending Students To Elite Universities

SILVER SPRING, MD — There are all kinds of rankings of high schools in the United States, with Maryland schools usually making a strong showing. A new ranking of which schools are funneling the most students to three elite universities ranks two Maryland schools among the top 40 in the nation. (See the list of top Maryland schools below.)

The new website, called PolarisList, now offers a new way to rank high schools, by the number of students the school sent to Harvard, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between the years 2015 to 2017.

PolarisList, founded by Harvard College alumnus Sai To Yeung, is his attempt "to demystify the education planning process for families across the country, and across all socioeconomic levels."

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In the site's methodology, Yeung explains why those three universities were selected to anchor the ranking:

We decided to focus on Harvard, Princeton, and MIT based on a combination of their selectivity and their accessibility to lower income students.

Selectivity is important to us because it means these schools have their pick of the lot when it comes to applicants. If a high school is able to send students to one of these three schools, it means that the school has created an environment to support high achieving students, whether it's in academics or extracurriculars.

Accessibility is just as important to us because we believe a college is only as good as its student body, and a student body is at its strongest when it encompasses a diversity of experiences. According to U.S. News and World Report, these three schools are among the colleges with the highest percentage of students receiving Pell Grants, which are most often given to undergrads with family incomes below $20,000. This means that these schools all offer generous financial aid that make it possible for all students to attend without significant burden.

The Maryland schools — both public — that cracked the top 40 in the U.S. are Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring (No. 31 overall and No. 1 in Maryland), which sent 21 students to those three institutions during the period; and Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville (No. 35 overall and No. 2 in Maryland), which sent 20 students to those institutions in the same timeframe.

At the top of the national list was Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, with 79 students sent to Harvard, Princeton and MIT during the period, followed by Stuyvesant High School in New York, which sent 71 students, and Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH, at No. 3, which sent 70 students. Rounding out the top five were The Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, N.J., with 63 students, and Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, with 62 students.

Top Maryland schools (private and public) based on how many students were sent to Harvard, Princeton and MIT:

• Montgomery Blair High School (Silver Spring), with a total of 21 sent to those three institutions
• Richard Montgomery High School (Rockville), with 20 students sent
• Winston Churchill High School (Potomac), with 13 students sent
• Thomas S. Wootton High School (Rockville), with 12 students sent
• Gilman School (Baltimore), with 11 students sent
• Walt Whitman High School (Bethesda), with 11 students sent
• McDonogh School (Owings Mills), with 8 students sent
• Walter Johnson High School (Bethesda), with 8 students sent
• Landon School (Bethesda), with 7 students sent
• Bryn Mawr School (Baltimore), with 6 students sent
• Eleanor Roosevelt High School (Greenbelt), with 6 students sent
• Georgetown Preparatory School (North Bethesda), with 6 students sent

Click here to visit PolarisList.

Also contributing to this story was Rich Kirby, Patch Staff.

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