Bridgewater-Raritan Bumped From Magazine’s Top School Ranking

In 2012, Bridgewater-Raritan High School was ranked as the No. 34 high school in the Garden State on U.S. News & World Report’s Best High School rankings—this year, the school didn’t make the cut.

The high school was not among the top 50 in the state, and was also unranked nationally. In 2012, the high school was #675 on the national list.

Rankings on the list are based on the publication's "college readiness index."
But this year, the school’s college readiness score, which is calculated by the number of AP classes taken by seniors and the number passing the AP tests, fell by less than one point, from 39.6 last year, to 39.1 this year.

According to the recently released state performance reports, the high school actually did not meet its goals in its peer group in the category of the number of students taking at least one AP test in English, math, social studies or science. The statewide target is 35 percent, and BRHS only saw schoolwide performance of 27 percent.

Assistant Superintendent Cheryl Dyer said the report looks at 10 tests that fit into those categories, but some of the more popular AP courses offered at the high school don’t count in the rankings, like AP psychology.

“They are looking at commonalities across the state,” she said, adding that the state is looking, for the most part, at the two language APs, two calculus APs, US 1 history, European history, biology, chemistry and physics.

But, Dyer said, participation in AP classes was at 41 percent this year in the school, meaning that 41 percent of graduating seniors took at least one AP course in either their freshman, sophomore, junior or senior years.

“We have pretty good participation,” she said. “Our average number of APs per student is 2.6.”

And the state report found that 94.6 percent of students taking AP tests in their junior and senior years at the school achieved scores of 3 or better, 85 percent in their peer group.

The three Somerset County schools that did achieve rankings on the list this year all saw higher college readiness scores than Bridgewater-Raritan, although not by much. Bernards High School earned a ranking of #33 and had a score of 45.7; Montgomery ranked #20 and had a score of 54.7; and Ridge ranked #14 and had a score of 60.7

Somerset County school rankings

School

College readiness

LA HSPA score

Math HSPA score

Ranking

Ridge

60.7

3.5

3.4

14

Montgomery

54.7

3.5

3.5

20

Bernards

45.7

3.4

3.4

33

Bridgewater/Raritan

39.1

3.3

3.3

na

Hillsborough

28.5

3.3

3.3

na

Watchung Hills

40.9

3.2

3.4

na

How much credence do you give the school rankings by U.S. News & World Report? And do you think the school should be encouraging students to take more core AP courses to raise the ranking?