New Hope-Solebury Ranks 5th In PA By U.S. News & World Report

New Hope-Solebury High School is among the very best high schools in Pennsylvania, according to new rankings by U.S. News & World Report. New Hope-Solebury was ranked fifth in the entire state, winning the publication's highly-coveted gold medal designation.

The 2018 best high school rankings, released on Wednesday, evaluate over 20,500 public high schools. U.S. News identified schools that best serve all students and assessed how prepared students are for college-level work. Schools are also recognized with gold, silver and bronze medals with gold indicating the greatest level of college readiness.

"Top-ranked schools succeed in three main areas: exceeding expectations on state proficiency tests, offering challenging coursework and graduating their students," Anita Narayan, managing editor of education at U.S. News, said in a press release.

New Hope-Solebury was the highest-ranked school in Bucks County. The second highest-ranked school in Bucks County was Council Rock High School North in Newtown, which came in 19th. Central Bucks High School-East in Doylestown was ranked 23rd. See the top 50 Pennsylvania schools here.

To determine the rankings, U.S. News teamed up with the social science research firm RTI International. A variety of data sources, including the Common Core of Data, College Board and the International Baccalaureate, were used.

A four-step process was used to rank all eligible schools. The first two steps were to determine whether students were performing better than statistically expected in the state and whether minority were performing at or better than the state average for minority students, which was the second step.

The third step required schools to meet or surpass a certain graduation benchmark. The final step was to determine college readiness. (You can read the full methodology here.)

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