U.S. News and World Report has released its fall ranking of the best high schools in the U.S., and while several Illinois schools made the cut, some big changes were made.
According to the ranking, five high schools in Chicago were named among the 100 best in the United States.
Ranking the highest on the list was Payton College Preparatory High School, which came in at No. 10 on the list, a drop from the fifth-place ranking the school received earlier this year.
The report, which was released Monday and named the top high schools for the 2023-24 school year, ranked public high schools using a set of six so-called "indicators," including things like college readiness, college curriculum breadth, state assessment proficiency and performance, underserved student performance and graduation rates. This year's ranking was adjusted, however, due to data discrepancies from the COVID pandemic. It ranked nearly 18,000 public high schools out of the nearly 24,000 reviewed.
The top five Illinois schools in the national ranking were the same five that made a previous list released earlier this year, but there were changes.
Northside College Preparatory came in at No. 37 instead of No. 31, Jones College Prep ranked at No. 60 instead of No. 51, Young Magnet High School jumped up to No. 63 from No. 67 and Lane Technical High School climbed to No. 70, up from No. 84.
Outside of Chicago, the highest-ranked public high schools were Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Vernon Hills High School, Proviso Math and Science Academy in Forest Park and Lake Forest High School, which all ranked above 200 on the list.
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As for the top-ranked school in the U.S., the coveted title that was previously held by Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, was now held by Early College at Guilford in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Another Midwest spot did make the top three, however, with Signature School in Evansville, Indiana, claiming the second overall spot.
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See the full ranking here.
