Strongsville Ranked 115th Best High School In Ohio: US News And World Report

STRONGSVILLE, OH - Strongsville High School is the 115th best high school in Ohio, according to US News and World Report's new high school rankings. The rankings also have Strongsville listed as the 2,068th best high school in the nation.

Despite receiving high scores for students proficiency in Math and English (96 and 98 percent respectively), the report says Strongsville has a college readiness score of 27.3. Only 32 percent of Strongsville High students participate in AP Testing, though 80 percent of those students receive "passing" grades on the exams. The high school received a "silver medal" in the report.

For comparison, let's look at Avon Lake High School, which ranked 13th in the state and received a "gold medal". Avon Lake received a 62.0 on its college readiness score. Additionally, 72 percent of students take part in AP Testing, with 81 percent passing.

How did US News and World Report come up with these rankings and statistics?

The 2017 rankings of best high schools identify the top-performing public schools at both the national and the state level and include date on more than 20,000 high schools. To be considered among the best, high schools had to pass a rigorous four-step process that sought to determine whether a school was serving all of its students and not just those who are college bound.

The first step determined whether students at a particular school were performing better than statistically expected for students in that state, factoring in percentages of economically disadvantaged students to identify schools. Schools that passed this step then moved on to step two, which assessed whether disadvantaged students performed at or better than state averages for the least-advantaged students.

For the next two steps, U.S. News looked at graduation rates and college readiness performance. To pass step three, high schools had to have a graduation rate of 75 percent or greater. For the 2017 rankings, the graduation rate reflect students who entered the ninth grade in the 2011-2012 school year. Finally, U.S. News calculated a college readiness index, which was the number of 12th graders who took and passed at least one AP test, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

To be ranked numerically nationally, schools had to pass steps 1-3 and have a college readiness index of 20.91 or above.

A total of 6,041 schools were ranked, 500 schools receiving gold medals, 2,109 schools receiving silver medals and the remaining 3,432 schools received bronze medals. Schools that received bronze medals passed the first three steps but were not ranked numerically in the national rankings. The state rankings were based on whether a high school received a gold, silver or a bronze medal and had a CRI value of 10 or higher. Previously, only gold and silver medal winners were ranked numerically on the state level.

The top high 10 schools in Ohio are:

1. Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati
2. Wyoming High School, Wyoming
3. Indian Hill High School, Cincinnati
4. Bexley High School, Bexley
5. Madeira High School, Cincinnati
6. Aurora High School, Aurora
7. Hudson High School, Hudson
8. Olentangy Liberty High School, Olentangy Local
9. Dublin Jerome High School, Dublin
10. Olentangy High School, Lewis Center

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