'Best Schools' List: West Essex Regional High School In North Caldwell Ranks 274th In America

*Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that WERHS was ranked 13th. The school ranked 274th. We apologize for the typo.

When you ask people why they live in New Jersey, you’ll hear one answer over and over… “it’s the schools.”

Just in time for the start of the school year, Newsweek released its annual list of the top public high schools in America for 2015 on Wednesday.

Newsweek’s list included West Essex Regional High School in North Caldwell as its 274th best high school in America.

WERHS wasn’t the only school in New Jersey to be recognized. Overall, the state had six of the top 10 public high schools in the country.

METHODOLOGY

The rankings were compiled using several metrics, including graduation rate, college enrollment rate, SAT and ACT scores, AP and IB scores and participation, teacher-student ratio and dropout rates.

“Some factors are more important, especially since our rankings focus on college readiness,” Jim Impoco, editor in chief of Newsweek, told Patch via email. “We place emphasis on criteria like college enrollment and graduation rate since we know that those are some of the biggest indicators of whether students are prepared for college.”

This year’s rankings were weighted by:

• Enrollment Rate—25 percent
• Graduation Rate—20 percent
• Weighted AP/IB/Dual Enrollment composite—17.5 percent
• Weighted SAT/ACT composite—17.5 percent
• Change in student enrollment between 9th-12th grades, to control for dropout rates—10 percent
• Counselor-to-Student Ratio—10 percent

“The top 20 schools on the ‘America’s Top High Schools’ are neck and neck. They all have perfect or near-perfect college enrollment and graduation rates,” Impoco said. “You start to see more variation as you look further down the list and also when you look at the factors that have less weight, like test scores.”

See the full rankings here.

OTHER RECENT RANKINGS

• West Essex High Ranked in Top 600 Schools in US and Canada for Stellar AP Course Work
• Report: Two Caldwell Area High Schools Rank Among the Nation’s ‘Most Challenging’
• District Ranks #8 For “Best Food” Rankings
• 100 High Schools With Best Teachers In NJ: West Essex Is 31st

Send Caldwell area news tips and press releases to eric.kiefer@patch.com