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Nine Suffolk County high schools landed among New York’s top 100 in U.S. News & World Report’s newly released Best High Schools rankings, helping power a combined 22 Long Island schools — Nassau and Suffolk together — into the state’s top 100.
The rankings, released today, evaluated nearly 18,000 of more than 27,000 public high schools nationwide across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Nationally, Central Magnet School in Tennessee climbed two spots to take the No. 1 ranking in the country. Meanwhile, BASIS Tucson North in Arizona, last year’s No. 1 school, sunk all the way down to No. 58.
U.S. News noted that all of this year’s top 20 national schools have either selective enrollment or admission by lottery.
How the rankings work
U.S. News scores schools using six factors:
- College readiness (30%) — Based on AP/IB exam participation and performance.
- State assessment proficiency (20%) — Student performance in math, science and reading.
- State assessment performance relative to expectations (20%) — How students performed relative to expectations for the school’s underserved student population.
- Underserved student performance (10%) — How underserved students performed compared to their non-underserved peers statewide.
- Breadth of college-level coursework (10%) — The availability and breadth of college-level coursework across subjects.
- Four-year graduation rate (10%) — Based on the graduation rate for the class that entered ninth grade in 2020-2021.
Top 20 Suffolk County high schools
Here are Suffolk County’s top 20 high schools, according to U.S. News & World Report, ranked by their standing among New York schools. Each school’s New York ranking is shown in parentheses.
- Commack High School (No. 12 in NY)
- Pierson Middle/High School in Sag Harbor (No. 13)
- Hauppauge High School (No. 15)
- Northport Senior High School (No. 18)
- West Islip Senior High School (No. 28)
- Bay Shore Senior High School (No. 38)
- Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills (No. 74)
- Harborfields High School in Greenlawn (No. 77)
- Cold Spring Harbor High School in (No. 79)
- Half Hollow Hills High School East in Dix Hills (No. 116)
- Babylon Junior-Senior High School (No. 174)
- Mount Sinai High School (No. 175)
- Ward Melville Senior High School in East Setauket (No. 179)
- Sayville High School in West Sayville (No. 207)
- Mattituck Junior-Senior High School (No. 221)
- Elwood/John Glenn High School (No. 249)
- Smithtown High School West (No. 293)
- Connetquot High School in Bohemia (No. 296)
- Port Jefferson High School (No. 305)
- Kings Park High School (No. 322)
Top: Commack High School graduates toss their caps during commencement exercises in June (Facebook/Commack School District)
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