These Are NYC's Best Public High Schools

NEW YORK — What New York City's elite high schools may lack in diversity they make up for in academic clout, new rankings show. The five boroughs' top public high schools are among the best in the Empire State and the entire nation, according to Niche.com's 2020 rankings released Monday.

Tribeca's top-flight Stuyvesant High School took first place on Niche's rankings for New York City and New York State in addition to ranking fourth in the nation. In all, five of the top 10 schools in the state are located in the city, the list shows.

Three of them are specialized high schools, which have been the subject of a debate over racial diversity. Just 10.5 percent of the roughly 4,800 students offered seats to eight of the specialized schools this spring were black and Latino even though those groups make up about two thirds of the city's student body.

But there are plenty of strong options for kids who don't want to take the tough Specialized High School Admissions Test. Six of the city's top 10 public high schools are not among the elite group that use the exam as the sole basis for admission, according to Niche's list.

Niche looked at more than 94,000 public schools, 4,100 private schools and nearly 11,000 school districts across the country. The rankings are meant to help parents and students find schools that best fit their needs.

“Unlike traditional school rankings, which rely almost exclusively on test scores and academic performance, Niche’s rankings provide a real-life view of what it’s like to attend a given school,” the company said in a news release.

Comments from current students, alumni, and parents are included in the analysis, as well as observations about things like campus life, extracurricular activities, sports options, diversity, and programs for gifted and special needs students.

“Parents and students need more than test-score data,” Luke Skurman, CEO at Niche, said in the news release. “They need to understand what it’s really like to attend a school before they start the application or registration process.”

For the first time, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, were ranked the top private and public high schools, respectively, in the nation.

Here are New York City's top 10 public high schools, along with their statewide rank. See Niche's full rankings here.

1. Stuyvesant High School (No. 1 in the state)
2. Staten Island Technical High School (No. 2 in the state)
3. Townsend Harris High School (No. 3 in the state)
4. Bronx High School of Science (No. 4 in the state)
5. High School of Math, Science & Engineering at The City College of New York (No. 7 in the state)
6. Baccalaureate School for Global Education (No. 12 in the state)
7. High School of American Studies at Lehman College (No. 15 in the state)
8. Bard High School Early College Queens (No. 16 in the state)
9. Brooklyn Technical High School (No. 18 in the state)
10. Eleanor Roosevelt High School (No. 23 in the state)

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.