High school students using laptop in classroom

The U.S. News Best High Schools rankings include The Early College at Guilford in North Carolina and Brooklyn Technical High School in New York. (Getty Images)

The U.S. News Best High Schools share three major traits: student bodies that perform well on state assessments, solid graduation rates and a good track record of preparing students for college.

But there are differences, too. When it comes to the number of students enrolled, school type and location, these highly ranked schools are all over the map.

The top 100 nationally ranked public high schools can be found in many regions of the U.S. In all, 22 states and the District of Columbia had at least one school in the top 100.

[Consider these different types of public high schools for your teen.]

Texas had the most top-100 high schools – a total of 17 Lone Star State schools made the grade. The state with the next-highest number of high schools among the top 100 is New York, with 16, followed by Florida with 13 schools.

The highest-ranked high schools come in all different sizes. The school with the lowest enrollment during the 2015-2016 school year – The Early College at Guilford in North Carolina – had 200 students, while 5,534 students walked the halls of Brooklyn Technical High School in New York the same year.

The map below shows the locations of the top-100 Best High Schools nationwide and can be filtered by school type – charter, magnet or traditional. Click on the dots to learn more about each school.

See the complete rankings of the Best High Schools.

Updated on May 10, 2018: This article has been updated to reflect the 2018 Best High Schools rankings.

Tags: education, K-12 education, high school, charter schools, rankings, students, academics


Kelly Mae Ross is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering international higher education. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at kross@usnews.com.
Nancy Pham is a senior digital producer for the Consumer Advice team at U.S. News. You can email her at npham@usnews.com.

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