These Are the Best Public High Schools in Massachusetts

Photo via iStock.com/billnoll

Massachusetts’ schools are consistently named the country’s best, but even within the state’s strong spots of learning, some stand out as the crème de la crème, the shiniest of the shiny, the greatest of all.

U.S. News and World Report is out with its annual rankings of the nation’s best public high schools, and Boston Latin School tops the list of institutions in Massachusetts. The Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School in Marlborough and Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden round out the top three. Five of the top-10 public schools in the Bay State are open-enrollment, while three require students to test-in, and two operate as charter schools that fill seats through a system of applications and lotteries.

Nationally, only Boston Latin School earned its way into the top 100 on the U.S. News list. The nation’s oldest public high school was ranked no. 48, while Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School came in at no. 107, and Mystic Valley Regional Charter School was placed at no. 193. However, just because so few Bay State schools made the upper echelon of the national list doesn’t mean they’re not doing well. Massachusetts is home to the largest percentage of schools that earned gold and silver medals from U.S. News, which are awarded based on students’ graduation rate, college readiness, and test scores. More than a quarter of eligible Massachusetts’ learning institutions earned the distinctions, moving the state to the top of the pack and snatching the first-place spot from Maryland, which has held the distinction for the last three years.

Boston Latin School and the Advanced Math and Science Academy finished first and second last year, too, but Hopkinton High School—which was ranked third in 2017—fell to fifth place in 2018 behind Mystic Valley and Lenox Memorial High School.