Wilton High School Ranks Fifth in CT on U.S. News and World Report’s “Best High Schools” List

U.S. News & World Report released its 2025-2026 Best High Schools on Tuesday, Aug. 19. This year, Wilton High School was ranked fifth within Connecticut, out of 208 high schools in the state.

Wilton High School made a 10-point jump from last year, when the magazine ranked the school 15th in Connecticut.

The annual list ranks nearly 18,000 out of more than 24,000 reviewed public high schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The magazine said its list reflects schools “whose students demonstrated outstanding outcomes above expectations in math, reading and science state assessments, earned qualifying scores on an array of college-level exams, and graduated in high proportions.”

Wilton is ranked at number 300 in the National Rankings (up from 817 in 2024) and at number 69 on the list of Best STEM Schools.

The four Connecticut schools that ranked ahead of WHS include three schools in Wilton’s DRG [District Reference Group]: Connecticut IB Academy in East Hartford at number 1; New Canaan High School at number 2; Weston High School at number 3; and Darien High School at number 4.

WHS came in one position higher than Staples High School in Westport (number 6), followed by other DRG schools: Ridgefield High School (number 12) and Joel Barlow High School in Redding (number 13). The complete list ranking Connecticut schools is available online.

U.S. News & World Report creates its rankings based on several metrics, including performance on state-required tests, graduation and how well they prepare students for college. Scores are given for how many students took at least one AP Exam, how many students passed at least one AP Exam and the school’s graduation rate.

WHS received an overall score of 98.32, which reflected that 53% of the students took at least one AP test, 49% of the students passed at least one AP test, and had a graduation rate of 94%.

The complete U.S. News overview of Wilton High School is available online and includes an assessment of WHS graduation rates, math and reading proficiency, math and reading performance, college readiness index, student diversity, test scores and more.

The magazine also pulls various data from multiple school years, specifying 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.