See Who Attends the Best Public High Schools

Attending a strong high school can help students prepare for college. Some schools offer International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement courses, for example, which can help students get ready for college-level academics.

Not all families have lots of public high school options. The number of schools parents and students have to choose from is often dictated by where they live.

But there are quality high schools located in all types of communities, according to the 2018 U.S. News Best High Schools rankings.

Of the 20,548 eligible high schools analyzed for the rankings, 5,948 of them were awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal. The medal-winning schools are spread across communities of various sizes. More than a third of them – 37 percent – are located in rural areas.

To determine which schools would earn a medal, U.S. News looked at high school students' performance on required state tests, their graduation rates and their college readiness. Only 500 schools earned a gold medal. Students at those schools showed the highest level of college readiness, based on AP and IB participation rates and the proportions of students who do well on those exams.

Gold medal schools are most commonly found in the suburban areas of large cities. This type of community is home to around 43 percent of all gold medal schools in the 2018 rankings.

U.S. News evaluated schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. South Dakota, which did not give U.S. News permission to use its AP results in the rankings, is the only state without at least one gold or silver medal school. Massachusetts is the state with the largest percentage of eligible schools with gold and silver medals.

In addition to being located in different types of communities, highly ranked schools also have different structures – charter, magnet or traditional.

Charter schools are public, but they are run by independent organizations and exempt from some state or local regulations that affect traditional public schools. Magnet schools are also public, and they are designed around a theme, like STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – or the performing arts. Both types of schools are tuition-free, and generally accept students via application or lottery systems.

While charter and magnet high schools top the national rankings, they represent a relatively small percentage of medal-winning schools: about 16 percent. That being said, charter and magnet high schools account for nearly 41 percent of all gold medal schools.

The No. 1 school in the country is BASIS Scottsdale, a charter school located in Arizona.

City dwellers generally have more charter options than their peers in less populated areas. In 2015-2016, the majority of charter schools – of all levels, not just high schools – were located in cities, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

In its rankings methodology, U.S. News takes into account how well a school serves all of its students, including those groups that have been historically underserved – black, Hispanic and low-income students.

To gauge how many of a school's students are from low-income families, U.S. News looked at the percentage of the 2015-2016 student body that was eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Based on this metric, there are some medal-winning schools that serve large numbers of economically disadvantaged students. Roughly 14 percent of schools that earned medals had 2015-2016 enrollment where between 75 to 100 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

In addition to a school's rank, families can explore data on its student-teacher ratio, student scores on state-mandated reading and math tests and more on the U.S. News website. Parents can also browse schools by district within a state.

See the complete Best High Schools rankings.