Holmdel High School Named To List Of America's Most Challenging High Schools

Holmdel High School has been named to the Washington Post’s list of America’s Most Challenging High Schools.

A total of 2,327 of the nation’s 22,000 high schools are on the The Washington Post list. The newspaper determined schools’ placements and rankings by figuring out how many college-level tests were given at a school last year, divided by the number of seniors who graduated. The three tests considered were the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education exams, the Washington Post said.

Holmdel High School was ranked at number 1,618.

To be placed on the list, schools needed scores of at least 1.00. To get that score, a school had to administer “as many tests in 2014 as they had graduates,’’ and schools are ranked in the order of ratio, the Post said.

A school in Arizona had the highest ratio, at 20.44, but the Washington Post, calls the 1.00 a modest ratio and says a school can get that score “if only half of its students take one AP, IB or AICE test in their junior year and one in their senior year.”

The Post said some schools tout their high passing rates on the exams, but said it did not use those numbers because schools can keep those rates artificially high if only the best students are allowed to take the classes.

“AP, IB and AICE are important because they give average students a chance to experience the trauma of heavy college reading lists and long, analytical college examinations,” the Post story said. “Research has found that even low-performing students who got a 2 on an AP test did significantly better in college than similar students who did not take AP.”

Magnet and charter schools that only draw top students were not included on the list. Only schools with average SAT scores below 2000 or average ACT scores under 29 were included on the list, although the Post did create a separate list of “Top-performing schools with elite students.” High Technology High School in Middletown and Biotechnology High School in Freehold were named to that list.