Get Answers to Questions About the Best High Schools Rankings

May 17, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Since the release of the new U.S. News 2012 Best High Schools rankings earlier this month, one of the most frequently asked questions is how to find out more information about the data and rankings and how to contact U.S. News in order to get detailed questions answered.

If you have a question about the Best High Schools, there is a strong likelihood that it's covered in our Frequently Asked Questions, which tackle 18 of the most regularly asked questions about the rankings.

One common question is regarding the sources of information that U.S. News used to calculate the 2012 rankings. There are a number of data sources used to produce the Best High Schools rankings; see a detailed explanation of sources here.

If you are a high school official, including school superintendent, principal, or assistant principal, or a state, county, or federal government official tasked with high school issues, and you want to find out how to ask U.S. News questions about the rankings and the data used in the rankings, please see our Information for High School Officials.

If you are from the media and have questions that you want to ask about U.S. News or about the rankings and the data used, please see our Frequently Asked Questions for Media.

If you're looking for a short explanation of the rankings methodology and other highlights of the Best High Schools, see the Best High Schools methodology.

If you are interested in the most detailed and comprehensive explanation of the rankings and its methodology, data sources, data fields, and calculations, please see the Technical Appendix produced by our partner, the American Institutes for Research (AIR).

Tags:: education,; high school,; rankings

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I attempted to contact US News with a question about its omission of schools and school districts in NH, but did not get a response. However, when I posed the following question to Ms Fellows of the NH Dept of Education...
"Recently the US News and World Report published its 'Best High Schools Rankings for 2012'. I live in Pelham, and when looking at New Hampshire schools ( http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-hampshire ), I was surprised to not see the Pelham/Windham school district nor its schools in the report. Was our state's department of education contacted and asked to contribute data for their assessment? I ask because not all of NH schools/school districts were represented and the report led me to believe all the schools/school districts were represented."
... she responded with the following:
"As far as I can determine, US News did not contact a person at NH Department of Education, but they may have harvested data from our web site. About twenty (around 25%) of NH high schools are missing. Most of the missing are large high schools, including Portsmouth, all 3 high schools in Manchester and the 2 in Nashua. I contacted US News about this. The researcher provided an explanation which suggested that his data was accurate, but he made incorrect assumptions about the meaning of the data. He did not provide sufficient information for me to replicate what he did or identify the specific data sources. As of today, the missing schools have not been added even though I think he has the data to do so. The researcher did ask for a NH contact name to use next year. US News also suffered an embarrassment when it was report in the press that a Nevada school US News ranked 13th in the nation only made the list because of data errors. As a very minimum, I would have expected fact checking/verification of the very highest ranked schools." - Sallie Fellows, NH Dept of Education
I am concerned that Mr Morse and US News are not adequately providing its readers an accurate picture of high schools not only in NH, but the rest of the states as well.

Fran Garboski of NH 12:43AM May 31, 2012

My thoughts? The data for Brooklyn Technical High School are completely wrong -- describing a school that has nothing in common with this top notch, competitive high school. I would like US News to at the very least take the incorrect data down from its website. It is insulting to the smart, hardworking students who attend this high school. What does it take to get you to correct erroneous data?

brooklyn parent of NY 11:03PM May 21, 2012