The curriculum at Walled Lake Western is quite vigorous with several honors, advancement placement (AP), and now International Baccalaureate (IB) courses that it offers to the students. Recently, The Washington Post released its list of America’s Most Challenging High School. They rank their schools on the list through an index formula with a simple ration. That ration can be found be adding the total of AP & IB scores that was administered, divided by the total number of graduating seniors. The Washington Post states that a ratio of 1.000 would mean that there was the same number of tests administered as graduating seniors and if the school’s ratio was that or better than a 1.000, the school made the list. A total of 29 high schools made the list in the state, with The Utica Academy for International Studies, located in Sterling Heights, Michigan, being the first with their ratio being 7.113. Troy, Black River, Bloomfield Hills Andover, and Grosse Pointe South High Schools rounded out the top 5. In the district, Walled Lake Northern came in 13th, while Walled Lake Central followed in 16th place. At Western, our ratio is 1.348 which actually dropped from 1.453 in 2012. Compared to other high schools in the country, Western is ranked 1,644 out of the 1,964 listed. Only 9% of the nation’s 22,000 total schools were eligible. The Washington Post credits Western’s offering of 15 AP courses and 16 IB courses that are offered. This rank compiles data from the previous school year so while we may be ranked 24th this year, our rank is expected to go up in the following years as this is the first year that students can take IB tests in the district. Western was also given listed as one of the Top 2000 High Schools in the nation!
