5 Raleigh High Schools Just Ranked Among America's Best

RALEIGH, NC — A high school in Raleigh cracked the top 100 for best schools in the country, according to the latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report. The report, released Wednesday, ranked 50 North Carolina high schools among the nation's best, with the highest being The Early College at Guilford, with a rank of 12th in the nation.

But Raleigh Charter High School in the Oberlin neighborhood ranked second in the state, the report said, and 64th in the country. The school, which earned a gold medal from the news organization, has a 99 percent graduation rate and received an index score of 91.4 in college readiness.

Students there can take Advanced Placement courses and tests and the AP participation rate at the school is 95 percent. The student body makeup is 48 percent male and 52 percent female, the report said. The total minority enrollment is 37 percent.

Three Wake County schools earned silver medals.

• Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy
  • National rank: 972
  • State rank: 27
• Wake NCSU STEM Early College High School
  • National rank: 1742
  • State rank: 36
• Wake Young Women's Leadership Academy
  • National rank: 1808
  • State rank: 38

One also earned a bronze.

• Wake Early College of Health and Science

The 2018 best high school rankings evaluate nearly 21,000 public high schools. U.S. News identified schools that best serve all students and assessed how prepared students are for college-level work. Schools are recognized with gold, silver and bronze medals, with gold indicating the greatest level of college readiness.

Seventeen North Carolina schools received a gold medal, 33 received a silver medal and 102 schools received a bronze medal.

Compared to other states, North Carolina's performance was rated as no. 35 by U.S. News, tied with Oregon. The state-by-state performance rating was based on which states have the highest the highest proportion of schools with gold and silver medals. Based on this metric, Massachusetts was the leading performer, followed by California and Maryland.

"Top-ranked schools succeed in three main areas: exceeding expectations on state proficiency tests, offering challenging coursework and graduating their students," Anita Narayan, managing editor of Education at U.S. News, said in a press release.

Here's how the top North Carolina schools finished nationally according to place in the 2018 rankings:

• The Early College at Guilford, Greensboro (12) GOLD
• Raleigh Charter High School, Raleigh (64) GOLD
• Woods Charter, Chapel Hill (100) GOLD
• Philip J. Weaver Ed Center, Greensboro (104) GOLD
• Thomas Jefferson Class Academy, Mooresboro (126) GOLD
• East Chapel Hill High, Chapel Hill (155) GOLD
• Lake Norman Charter, Huntersville (163) GOLD
• STEM Early College at N.C. A&T, Greensboro (179), GOLD
• Chapel Hill High, Chapel Hill (217), GOLD
• School of Inquiry and Life Sciences, Asheville (225) GOLD
• Gray Stone Day, Misenheimer, (236) GOLD
• Penn-Griffin Schools, High Point (274) GOLD
• Carrboro High, Carrboro (286) GOLD
• Marvin Ridge High, Waxhaw (369) GOLD
• Ardrey Kell High, Charlotte (384) GOLD
• Providence High, Charlotte (436) GOLD
• Community School of Davidson, Davidson (438) GOLD

Bronze medal schools are not ranked by U.S. News.

To determine the rankings, U.S. News teamed up with the social science research firm RTI International. A variety of data sources, including the Common Core of Data, College Board and the International Baccalaureate, were used.

A four-step process was used to rank all eligible schools. The first two steps were to determine whether students were performing better than statistically expected in the state and whether minority were performing at or better than the state average for minority students, which was the second step. The third step required schools to meet or surpass a certain graduation benchmark and the final step was to determine college readiness. (You can read the full methodology here.)

The top 10 high schools in the U.S. overall are:

1. BASIS Scottsdale (AZ)
2. BASIS Chandler (AZ)
3. BASIS Oro Valley (AZ)
4. BASIS Tucson North (AZ)
5. BASIS Flagstaff (AZ)
6. Meridian School (TX)
7. International Academy of Macomb (MI)
8. BASIS Peoria (AZ)
9. Baccalaureate School for Global Education (NY)
10. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (VA)

Click here to see the full rankings and for more insight on the data.

Patch reporters Feroze Dhanoa and Kimberly Johnson contributed to this report.

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