Shorecrest Wins Silver in Best High Schools National Rankings

Shorecrest High School has been awarded a silver medal for the second consecutive year for U.S. News and World Report's 2013 ranking of the Best High Schools, released Tuesday. 

Shorecrest is ranked 11th in Washington by U.S. News out of nearly 600 high schools in the state, and 660th in America out of more than 21,000 high schools. Last year Shorecrest ranked 24th in the state. Shorecrest will again receive silver medal status for its academic achievement. U.S. News awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals to the top-performing schools.

Shorecrest offers 15 AP courses to students this year, with 51 percent of the students participating. In the survey year studied by U.S. News, Shorecrest students passed 72 percent of their rigorous AP exams.

For its rankings, U.S. News collected data on more than 21,000 public high schools from 49 states and the District of Columbia. (Nebraska did not report enough data to be included in the rankings.) From its release:

U.S. News joined forces with the American Institutes for Research, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, to evaluate schools on overall student performance on state-mandated assessments, as well as how effectively schools educated their black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students. Performance on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams was then used to determine the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

Schools were ranked within each state, as well as on a national stage, so families can see how their public high school stacked up against rivals within the community and across the country. In the national rankings, 500 schools earned gold medals, 1,790 were awarded silver and 2,515 took home bronze.

The top five high schools in Washington state, along with their national rankings, are:

See the full 2013 U.S. News Best High School rankings here.

What does your child’s high school do the best? What could it work on? Tell us in the comments.