Schools
51 N.J. Public High Schools Rank Among Nation's Best In Newsweek's 2016 List
Breaking: Newsweek's annual ranking of public high schools has just been released, and 51 in N.J. made the cut. Find out which ones here.
Newsweek’s list of the best public high schools in the country is out, and 51 New Jersey high schools made the list, which ranked the 500 best high schools nationwide.
The top-ranked school in the state was Academy for Math, Science and Engineering in Rockaway, which came in second nationally, and Union County Magnet High School in Scotch Plains, which came in fourth.
Several other schools that typically make the top ranks made this list, such as Westfield and Holmdel. But there were surprises (see below).
Find out what's happening in Westfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Here's a look at all of the New Jersey high schools that made Newsweek's list and where they came in on the national list (in parentheses):
- (2) Academy for Math, Science and Engineering, Rockaway
- (4) Union County Magnet High School, Scotch Plains
- (10) Middlesex Cty Acad. for Sci,, Math, & Engineering Tech., Edison
- (11) Bergen County Academies, Hackensack
- (12) Academy of Allied Health and Science, Neptune
- (14) Biotechnology High School, Freehold
- (20) High Technology High School, Lincroft
- (21) Academy for Allied Health Sciences, Scotch Plains
- (23) Academy for Information Technology, Scotch Plains
- (27) Communications High School, Wall
- (31) Middlesex County Academy for Allied Health & Biomedical Sciences, Woodbridge
- (40) Chatham High School, Chatham
- (41) Bergen County Technical High School - Teterboro, Teterboro
- (67) Westfield High School, Westfield
- (71) Ridge High School, Basking Ridge
- (76) Summit High School, Summit
- (84) Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science, Manahawkin
- (88) Bernards High School, Bernardsville
- (91) Holmdel High School, Holmdel
- (108) Bridgewater-Raritan Regional High School, Bridgewater
- (112) Moorestown High School, Moorestown
- (115) Madison High School, Madison
- (127) John P Stevens High School, Edison
- (131) Watchung Hills Regional High School, Warren
- (137) Glen Rock High School, Glen Rock
- (144) Rumson-Fair Haven Regional HS, Rumson
- (158) Morris County School of Technology, Denville
- (181) Marine Academy of Science and Technology, Highlands
- (189) Union County Vocational Technical High School, Scotch Plains
- (192) Governor Livingston High School, Berkeley Heights
- (198) Montville Township High School, Montville
- (203) Academy for Performing Arts, Scotch Plains
- (210) Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School, Scotch Plains
- (217) Hillsborough High School, Hillsborough
- (222 Wayne Hills High School, Wayne
- (226) Allentown High School, Allentown
- (227) Northern Valley Regional High School Old Tappan, Old Tappan
- (233) North Hunterdon-Voorhees, Annandale
- (234) Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest, Demarest
- (237) Pequannock Township High School, Pompton Plains
- (365) Hanover Park High School, East Hanover
- (366) Mahwah High School, Mahwah
- (377) Cranford High School, Cranford
- (383) Livingston High School, Livingston
- (417) Wayne Valley High School, Wayne
- (421) Marlboro High School, Marlboro
- (425) Cresskill High School, Cresskill
- (429) Whippany Park High School, Whippany
- (473) Kinnelon High School, Kinnelon
- (482) Mount Olive High School, Flanders
- (497) Middletown HS South, Middletown
Find out what's happening in Westfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The school rankings are borne of legitimate research. Newsweek, along with the analytics firm Westat, uses legitimate and objective measurements to put together its annual ranking of the country’s best high schools.
And just in time for the start of school, Newsweek released 2016’s list Thursday morning.
Newsweek looked at six measurements and weighted them to come up with a “college readiness index.” The rankings are meant to show how well high schools do at preparing students for college.
Those measurements and their weight are:
- Holding power: 10 percent
- Ratio of counselor/full-time equivalent to student enrollment: 10 percent
- Weighted SAT/ACT: 17.5 percent
- Weighted AP/IB/dual enrollment composite: 17.5 percent
- Graduation rate: 20 percent
- College enrollment rate: 25 percent
In all, 6,477 of the nation’s 15,819 public high schools met the criteria to be considered in Newsweek’s rankings. Newsweek used school performance data from the National Center for Education Statistics to narrow down the list of schools.
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