BREAKING NEWS, Thursday, Aug. 11:  Wilton High School was ranked 56th by Newsweek on its annual list of America’s Top High Schools, published today.

WHS was also the second-highest CT high school on the list, topped only by Weston‘s high school, which was ranked 39th. Of nearby schools, only Ridgefield was listed at 151st. Schools that did not make the list:  Westport’s Staples High School, Darien and New Canaan.

UPDATE:  According to information published on Newsweek’s website, they used specific methodology to determine the rankings.

Created Analysis Threshold

First, Newsweek editors created an achievement index they determined using several measurements based on performance (i.e., state standardized assessments) using data reported by states to EDFacts at the U.S. Department of Education. Using this index, they determined a threshold level.

For the absolute list, the index was used to identify high schools that perform at or above the 80th percentile within each state. For the relative list, the index was used to identify high schools whose performance exceeds their state’s average by 0.5 standard deviations or more when accounting for students’ socioeconomic status.

Schools that met that threshold on both lists were asked to compile and submit data* from the 2014-2015 school year:

  • School demographics and numbers of FTE counselors
  • College acceptance and enrollment
  • SAT and ACT participation and performance
  • AP, IB, and AICE participation and performance
  • Dual enrollments

Ranking Analysis

For schools above the threshold, Newsweek created a College Readiness Score based on six indicators:

  • Enrollment Rate—25 percent
  • Graduation Rate—20 percent
  • Weighted AP/IB composite—17.5 percent
  • Weighted SAT/ACT composite—17.5 percent
  • Holding Power (change in student enrollment between ninth and 12th grades, to control for student attrition)—10 percent
  • Counselor-to-Student Ratio —10 percent

*According to the website, data was collected not only from the schools themselves but also via other sources:

“Short-list analysis data (reading/language arts and math state test proficiency, as well as the FRPL percentage) came from the federal database of the National Center for Education Statistics (www.data.gov), or NCES. We obtained records for over 15,819 schools and applied our threshold cutoff to make a short list of 4,760 schools for the absolute list and 4,452 for the relative list.

“College Readiness analysis data was obtained by surveying approximately 6,500 schools that made the above cutoff. We received responses from about 25 percent of all surveyed schools. A portion of the data (namely, Magnet/Charter status, Student Retention and FRPL percentage) used in the College Readiness analysis came from the CCD. We also asked schools to report their FRPL percentage in our survey as well, so we could denote schools where there was a 15 percentage point or greater discrepancy between the FRPL percentage indicated by the federal database and the self-reported FRPL percentage. We ran further checks on the collected data to account for any mistakes, rechecking and/or removing any figures that were improbably high.”