U.S. News ranks Orono High School #5 in Minnesota

Today, U.S News and World Report released its 2020 Top High School rankings for the nation. Orono High School (OHS) ranks #5 in Minnesota, ahead of all other West Metro high schools, and ranks #410 in the nation out of more than 24,000 high schools reviewed. OHS also received the prestigious honor of ranking #177 on a list of only 250 high schools designated by U.S. News as STEM High Schools.

Congratulations to Orono students, teachers, staff, alumni and families for their hard work and dedication to academic success for all learners. 

Methodology

The highest-ranked schools are those whose students excelled on state tests and performed beyond expectations; participated in and passed a variety of college-level exams; and graduated in high proportions. U.S. News assigned numerical ranks to schools performing in the top 75%. Schools performing below the 25th percentile are listed alphabetically with a ranking range.

U.S. News also ranked the Best High Schools for STEM, with an emphasis on Advanced Placement (AP) science and math test results. Of the 250 schools on this list, all were required to be in the top 1,000 of the overall national rankings to be eligible.

The ranking methodology draws from data for the 2017-2018 school year, using both state and federal datasets. 

In addition, the College Board and International Baccalaureate provided data on their respective college-prep programs, Advanced Placement and IB.

These are the six indicators of school quality used to calculate the rankings:

• College readiness, based on the proportions of 12th-grade students who took and passed AP and/or IB exams.
• College curriculum breadth, based on proportions of 12th-grade students who took and passed AP and/or IB exams in multiple content areas.
• Math and reading proficiency, based on student performance on state-required tests.
• Math and reading performance, based on whether performance on state assessments exceeded expectations given the school’s proportion of underserved students.
• Underserved student performance, based on how black, Hispanic and low-income students performed on state assessments compared with those who are not underserved in the state.
• Graduation rates, based on the proportion of students who entered ninth grade in 2013-2014 and graduated four years later.

About the U.S. News 2020 Best High School rankings

U.S. News ranked approximately 17,790 public high schools, out of a review of more than 24,000 in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. U.S. News coordinated with North Carolina-based RTI International, a global nonprofit social science research firm, to rank the 2020 Best High Schools.