According to the yearly US News & World Report Best High Schools rankings, Wellesley High School this year came in #28 out of over 300 public high schools in the state of Massachusetts. In 2019 Wellesley took the #19 spot.
Boston Latin School in Boston was ranked #1 in the state.
Area schools that came ahead of Wellesley in the state rankings were: Dover-Sherborn Regional HS (#5); Weston HS (#8); Medfield Senior High (#14); Newton South (#20); and Wayland HS (#26).
Nationally, Wellesley fell from #600 last year down to #825. US News & World Report says that schools are ranked based on their performance on state-required tests, graduation rates, and how well schools prepare students for college.
Only one Massachusetts school cracked the national top-100 list — Boston Latin School (#37).
Read about US News & World Report’s methedologies.
Among factors taken into consideration when ranking schools:
- student-to-teacher ratio: (13:1 in Wellesley’s case, same as last year)
- math proficiency: 97%, up from 96% last year
- reading proficiency: 99% (Wellesley has been at either 100% or 99% for years)
- percentage that participate in AP exams: 58%, same as last year
- graduation rate: (100%)
In 2014, WHS reached the dizzying heights of #4 out of more than 300 on the US News & World Report ranking of public high schools in Massachusetts, and was considered by the Report to be #164 in the country.
Click here to see Wellesley’s High School’s profile and here for the full list of top schools in Massachusetts.
Here’s who came in 1, 2, 3 in top Massachusetts high schools:
Boston Latin took the #1 spot, as it did in 2018.
Sturgis Charter Public School in Hyannis came in #2, up a slot from last year.
Hopkinton HS came in #3 in the state.
Need to be #1?
In case you’re interested in uprooting your family to chase after what the Report says is the #1 high school in the country, you will be off to Alexandria, VA to enroll your kids in the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. According to the the school’s website, Thomas Jefferson “was established in 1985 as a partnership among businesses and schools created to improve education in science, mathematics, and technology. Representatives from business and industry and staff of the Fairfax County Public Schools worked together in curriculum and facilities development for the school.”
Fixed the header for you:
US News & World report 2020 rankings: Wellesley HS drops down to a disappointing #28, from #4 in 2014 during David Lussier’s tenure
Wow. Theirs is a deeply, deeply flawed “best school” methodology. The difference between an “A” and an “F” quality school in the USNWR rubric is almost entirely dependent on a school’s journey along the narrow track prescribed by The College Board, which owns the AP test ecosystem. Much of the WHS curriculum is better (not worse) for its lack of slavish adhesion to this one kind of quality, one kind of test, one kind of curriculum.
Except none of what you said matters since colleges have certain expectations and nobody wants their kids to be the guinea pig for the social experiment you mention above. People move to Wellesley because of the quality of schools, but unfortunately Wellesley is no longer a leader in education. These lists matter. They impact real estate. They impact school enrollment numbers. Wellesley needs young families to move to this town because the aging population without school kids is taking over, and we know what happens when people forget why we pay property taxes We can remain in denial all we want about this, but it’s the reality.