The Top Public High Schools in Greater Boston, Ranked for 2024

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Photo by Maskot via Getty Images

About the 2024 list

This year’s rankings offer a statistical analysis of the top-performing high schools in the Greater Boston area. To ensure accuracy and consistency, it is compiled with the most recent data available at presstime from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which publishes a limited amount of information on each school, including MCAS and SAT scores. In an effort to provide additional transparency, we’ve included median household income and home prices for each high school’s town(s). We have also included several “honor roll” lists so you can see in what areas, exactly, different schools excel, as well as a list of high-performing schools in areas with lower median home prices.

Note: Scroll down and right to see all categories. To view the top 100 schools all at once, choose ‘Show 100 entries.’

Updated September 10, 2024: We incorrectly entered Burlington High School’s educator evaluation data for percent proficient; the correct percentage is 94.9%. Statistician George Recck re-calculated the list, and, as a result, several schools’ rankings have shifted. The updated standings are now reflected below.

Top Public High Schools in Greater Boston, Ranked for 2024


Methodology: This chart ranks public high schools in towns or districts within, or partially within, I-495. To compile the list, we used the most recent data for each school available at presstime from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In cases of missing information, we used data from a previous year as necessary. In some cases where no data was available, a value equal to the weighted average of a school’s other categories was used. We omitted highly specialized schools and schools reporting insufficient information, as well as charter schools. To calculate the rankings, statistician George Recck, director of the Math Resource Center at Babson College, analyzed the results, comparing each high school’s data points to the overall average for all schools. He then applied a percentage weight to the standardized value for each school to create an aggregate “score” to determine each high school’s rank. Median home prices, provided by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and MLS Property Information Network, are from 2023; median household incomes, from the Census’s American Community Survey, are from 2018 to 2022 and reflect 2022 dollars. For schools that serve multiple cities or towns, a weighted average for median home price and median household income was created based on the population of each town. Neither of these data points factored into a school’s overall ranking. We considered it more desirable to have a smaller class size and a lower student-to-teacher ratio.

The Honor Roll
Top High Schools By Other Metrics

| Average class size | Student-to-Teacher Ratio | Bang for Your Housing Buck |

Photo by FG Trade via Getty Images

Average Class Size

Student-to-Teacher Ratio

Bang for Your Housing Buck*

*For this chart, we selected the institutions whose high school rankings most significantly surpassed the ranking of their respective median home price and listed them here alphabetically.

10th Graders Meeting or Exceeding Expectations on MCAS

English Language Arts

Math

Science & Technology/Engineering

Research by Eden Mor and Cheynie Singleton

First published in the print edition of the September 2024 issue.

Top Schools 2024

Previously

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