North Side High Schools Rank Among Best

It was a clean sweep for Chicago Public Schools as the most prestigious selective enrollment schools in Chicago were named the four best high schools in the state, according to a ranking of public schools released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report magazine.

Northside College Prep, Walter Payton College Prep, Jones College Prep and Whitney M. Young Magnet School grabbed the top spots on the list. Three of the schools also made it into the list of the top 100 high schools in the entire country. The rankings rely on a mix of criteria, including teacher-student ratio, test scores and college readiness.

Lincoln Park High School is a tad further down the list in the No. 11 spot. Lane Tech College Prep in nearby Northcenter eased into No. 14. There are 107 high schools in the CPS system.

The 2013 U.S. News and World Report Best High Schools rankings are based on data collected from more than 21,000 public U.S. high schools from 49 states and the District of Columbia. The rankings are designed to capture how well high schools educate all of their students and prepare them for college-level work, a press release from U.S. News said.

Schools are evaluated based on overall student performance on state assessments, Advanced Placement tests and International Baccalaureate exams. The ranking also takes into account how well schools educate black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students, according to U.S. News. 

Once the college readiness factor was computed, U.S. News designated the 4,805 highest-scoring schools as gold, silver or bronze; the top 500 schools received gold medals and the next 1,790 received silver.

• See the full 2013 U.S. News Best High Schools rankings
• Learn how U.S. News calculated the Best High Schools rankings