Newsweek Names Hopkinton High 95th in U.S.

Hopkinton High School, already ranked high for educational excellence by Boston magazine, and other media outlets that use a variety of methods to evaluate high schools, has been named the 95th best high school in the United States by Newsweek magazine.

Superintendent of Schools John Phelan said he is particularly gratified by the ranking because Newsweek consulted with educational experts to revamp its methodology this year, and looked at a wide variety of criteria rather than test scores and the number of students in advanced-placement classes.

The result was that Hopkinton moved from being ranked 392nd last year to 95th this year.

"This is a proud accomplishment for the staff, students and community," Phelan said.

Phelan described the team which formulated the new methodology as educational luminaries.

The panel of Newsweek experts included Teach for America's Wendy Kopp, Tom Vander Ark, the former executive director for education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who is now at Open Education Solutions and Stanford professor of education and founder of the School Redesign Network Linda Darling-Hammond.

Newsweek charged this group with developing "a yardstick that fully reflects a school’s success turning out college-ready (and life-ready) students."

Each school’s score, Newsweek said, is comprised of six components: graduation rate (25%)

college matriculation rate (25%)

AP tests taken per graduate (25%)

average SAT/ACT scores (10%)

average AP/IB/AICE scores (10%)

and AP courses offered (5%). 

A full explanation of Newsweek's methodology is available here.

Other Massachusetts high schools in Newsweek's Top 500 include No. 63 Boston Latin School, Belmont High School (110), Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden (116), Westwood High School (134), Manchester-Essex Regional High School (138), Longmeadow High School (241), Sturgis Charter School in Hyannis, Tahanto Regional High School in Boylston (449), Sandwich High School (484), and University Park Campus School in Worcester (495).