2017 Best High Schools in DC / MD / VA

Rank	High School	Average SAT	National Merit Semi-Finalists	Presidential Scholar Candidates	Number Attending 15 Top Colleges	Type	City	State
1	Thomas Jefferson Magnet	1466	31.90%	5.61%	9.18%	Magnet	Alexandria	VA
2	Montgomery Blair Magnet	1488	25.69%	4.51%	Not reported	Magnet	Silver Spring	MD
3	Sidwell Friends School	1400	13.76%	9.70%	14.40%	Private	Washington	DC
4	National Cathedral School (NCS)	1399	9.92%	9.76%	15.79%	Private	Washington	DC
5	St. Albans School	1350	13.30%	7.79%	14.21%	Private	Washington	DC
6	Maret School	1373	4.74%	8.07%	10.42%	Private	Washington	DC
7	Georgetown Day School	1343	7.34%	4.72%	9.54%	Private	Washington	DC
8	St. Anselm's School	1351	8.09%	2.94%	5.22%	Private	Washington	DC
9	Holton-Arms School	1351	9.18%	2.49%	7.09%	Private	Bethesda	MD
10	Potomac School	1324	7.23%	1.20%	6.63%	Private	McLean	VA
11	Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School	1295	4.92%	1.43%	5.55%	Private	Rockville	MD
12	Washington International School (WIS)	1285	1.34%	1.43%	4.37%	Private	Washington	DC
13	Stone Ridge School	1268	2.77%	1.27%	3.66%	Private	Bethesda	MD
14	Landon School	1289	2.90%	0.61%	6.20%	Private	Bethesda	MD
15	Georgetown Preparatory School	1292	2.27%	0.65%	4.70%	Private	Washington	DC
16	Walt Whitman High School	1272	3.65%	0.53%	Not reported	Public	Bethesda	MD
17	Richard Montgomery High School	1190	6.22%	1.07%	4.45%	Public	Rockville	MD
18	Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School (Visi)	1254	2.51%	0.84%	Not reported	Private	Washington	DC
19	St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School	1254	2.27%	0.00%	Not reported	Private	Alexandria	VA
20	Winston Churchill High School	1107	1.93%	0.38%	4.30%	Public	Potomac	MD
21	Madeira School	1259	1.66%	0.00%	1.34%	Private	McLean	VA
22	School Without Walls	1202	1.07%	0.97%	Not reported	Magnet	Washington	DC
23	Gonzaga College High School	1230	1.53%	0.43%	2.11%	Private	Washington	DC
24	Edmund Burke School	1241	1.26%	0.00%	Not reported	Private	Washington	DC
25	Sandy Spring Friends School	1230	1.17%	0.00%	Not reported	Private	Sandy Spring	MD
26	Emerson Preparatory School	1200	0.35%	0.00%	Not reported	Private	Washington	DC
27	Walter Johnson High School	1174	1.19%	0.21%	0.87%	Public	Bethesda	MD
28	Bethesda-Chevy Chase (BCC) High School	1146	1.63%	0.47%	Not reported	Public	Bethesda	MD
29	Thomas Wootton High School	1234	1.73%	0.32%	Not reported	Public	Rockville	MD
30	McLean School	1126	0.86%	0.00%	Not reported	Public	Potomac	MD
31	Bullis School	Not reported	0.20%	0.00%	2.40%	Private	Potomac	MD
32	Field School	Not reported	0.82%	0.00%	1.30%	Private	Washington	DC
33	British School	Not reported	0.35%	0.00%	Not reported	Private	Washington	DC
34	St. John's College High School	Not reported	0.24%	0.00%	Not reported	Private	Washington	DC
35	Episcopal High School	Not reported	0.35%	0.00%	3.73%	Private	Alexandria	VA

Methodology: ranking the best high schools

Academically, what are the top high schools in Washington, DC; Maryland; and Virginia? These rankings are a rigorous answer to that question, based solely on objective academic measures.

Also answered are common questions about high schools. Which schools send the highest percentage of their students to top colleges? Which schools have the most National Merit semi-finalists? Which schools have the highest average SAT scores?

Highlights of the rankings:

2 public high schools, Thomas Jefferson (tuition: $0) and Montgomery Blair (tuition: $0), outranked every private high school in the DC metro area.
Otherwise, private high schools dominate the rankings.
1 DC public high school made the list. It was #22 – the School Without Walls, a magnet high school.

Factors

The magnet population of each magnet high school was calculated separately from the mainstream population, if any.

3 factors were weighted equally:

Average SAT (math and critical reading)
Average number of Presidential Scholar candidates
Average number of National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists

For many high schools, we also reported the average number of students who went on to attend 15 top colleges. This number was not included for ranking purposes. The schools included were Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Each criterion was normalized to make it comparable to the other criteria. The Min-Max method was used to create raw scores:

x^t – min_c(x^t0) / (max_c(x^t0 – min_c(x^t0)).

High schools were ranked by raw score.

Data sources

¹ SAT Average. Calculated by adding average Math and average Critical Reading scores. Scores for all public high schools, all magnet high schools, National Cathedral School (NCS), Stone Ridge School, Gonzaga, St. Anselm’s, Washington International School, Holton-Arms, and Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School were obtained from the schools’ websites. Maret School scores were obtained from their 2015-16 Curriculum Guide. Scores for Sidwell, Emerson, Georgetown Day, and Georgetown Visitation were obtained from the Washington Examiner. Scores for other private high schools were obtained via private communication with school staff.

² National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists. Calculated by averaging the percentage of National Merit Semi-finalists from 2006-2015.

³ Presidential Scholar Candidates. Calculated by averaging the percentage of Presidential Scholar Candidates from 2006-2015.

⁴ Number attending 15 Top Colleges. This is an average of the percentage of students from each high school who went on to attend 15 top schools from 2004 to 2014. The schools included were Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania. The methods of obtaining this information were inspired by three different studies and included collecting the high schools’ self-reports and viewbooks from the 15 colleges. Education researcher Sam Tuo collected these data from 2004 to 2014.