NEW YORK - Families across New York and New Jersey have a fresh benchmark for academic excellence as U.S. News & World Report unveiled its 2026 list of the region’s top public high schools.
What we know:
Brooklyn Latin School was the only New York school to appear in the top 100, earning the No. 73 spot out of 18,000 evaluated schools in the 2026-27 Best U.S. High School Rankings.
The Brooklyn high school was followed by City Honors School in Buffalo at No. 187 and the Baccalaureate School for Global Education on Long Island at No. 201.
New Jersey had several schools make it into the top 100 for this year's list:
- High Technology High School in Lincroft: 28th place
- Edison Academy Magnet School in Edison: 40th place
- Union County Magnet School in Scotch Plain: 59th place
- Biotechnology High School in Freehold: 72nd place
- Woodbridge Academy Magnet School in Woodbridge: 75th place
- Bergen County Academies in Hackensack: 78th place
- Academy for Information Technology in Scotch Plains: 83rd place
- Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro: 84th place
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Big picture view:
Central Magnet School in Tennessee secured top spot in the U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of the top-performing high schools.
Signature School in Indiana, Julia R. Masterman Secondary School in Pennsylvania, Davidson Academy in Nevada and School Without Walls High School in Washington, D.C., rounded out the top five.
Dig deeper:
For the 2026-2027 Best High Schools rankings, U.S. News & World Report evaluated nearly 18,000 public high schools nationwide to determine how well they educate students from diverse social and economic backgrounds.
A school’s overall score is determined by summing its performance across six weighted indicators. College Readiness (30%), College Curriculum Breadth (10%), State Assessment Proficiency (20%), State Assessment Performance (20%), Underserved Student Performance (10%) and Graduation Rate (10%).
New York, Colorado, Vermont and Maine did not authorize the College Board to share AP data with U.S. News & World Report, which means the College Readiness and College Curriculum Breadth scores for these schools were calculated solely on participation and performance on IB exams.
The Source: Information from this article was sourced from the U.S. News & World Report.