Solon 1 Of Ohio's 20 Best High Schools: US News And World Report

SOLON, OH - U.S. News and World Report has crunched the numbers for 2017, releasing its annual list of best high schools in the country, ranking the schools on a national and a state level. Solon High School ranks 15th in Ohio and 386th nationally.

According to the U.S. News and World Report Scorecard, the school's students have a 99 percent proficiency in Math and English. About 64 percent of the student body is participating in AP testing, with 94 percent "passing".

The graduation rate for Solon High School is 98 percent. The district also received a "gold medal" designation from U.S. News and World Report.

However, the school received a 60.7 on the college readiness of its student body. Here's how the report was compiled, including the college readiness score.

The 2017 rankings of best high schools identify the top-performing public schools at both the national and the state level and include date on more than 20,000 high schools. To be considered among the best, high schools had to pass a rigorous four-step process that sought to determine whether a school was serving all of its students and not just those who are college bound.

The first step determined whether students at a particular school were performing better than statistically expected for students in that state, factoring in percentages of economically disadvantaged students to identify schools. Schools that passed this step then moved on to step two, which assessed whether disadvantaged students performed at or better than state averages for the least-advantaged students.

For the next two steps, U.S. News looked at graduation rates and college readiness performance. To pass step three, high schools had to have a graduation rate of 75 percent or greater. For the 2017 rankings, the graduation rate reflect students who entered the ninth grade in the 2011-2012 school year. Finally, U.S. News calculated a college readiness index, which was the number of 12th graders who took and passed at least one AP test, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

To be ranked numerically nationally, schools had to pass steps 1-3 and have a college readiness index of 20.91 or above.

A total of 6,041 schools were ranked, 500 schools receiving gold medals, 2,109 schools receiving silver medals and the remaining 3,432 schools received bronze medals. Schools that received bronze medals passed the first three steps but were not ranked numerically in the national rankings. The state rankings were based on whether a high school received a gold, silver or a bronze medal and had a CRI value of 10 or higher. Previously, only gold and silver medal winners were ranked numerically on the state level.

The top high 10 schools in Ohio are:

1. Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati
2. Wyoming High School, Wyoming
3. Indian Hill High School, Cincinnati
4. Bexley High School, Bexley
5. Madeira High School, Cincinnati
6. Aurora High School, Aurora
7. Hudson High School, Hudson
8. Olentangy Liberty High School, Olentangy Local
9. Dublin Jerome High School, Dublin
10. Olentangy High School, Lewis Center

Photo from Solon Schools