According to US News and World Report Magazine’s annual public school rankings Maryland ranks number one in the country. As for RHS, our home school is 16th in the state.

The top schools in Maryland in order are Whitman HS, Churchill HS and Poolesville HS. All three schools have a 98 percent graduation rate and a score above 80 in college readiness.

New Magazine rates schools on a medal based system with 2.5 percent of schools in the nation holding a gold metal, 10.9 percent with silver, 17.8 percent with bronze and 68.8 percent with no metal. These scores are based on college readiness and standardized tests.

To obtain a gold medal the school must be one of the top 500 based on college readiness. Silver schools are high-performing schools with slightly less college readiness. Bronze means high-performance on state exams.

College readiness is usually determined by student performance in AP or IB classes and what the school has to offer.

RHS has earned a gold medal at 413th in the nation out of more than 21,000 high schools. According to our school scorecard on the New Magazine’s website RHS is scored at 58.9 on the college readiness index. Also earned is a 71 percent in AP testing, 77 percent in AP passed, 92 percent mathematics proficiency and 91 percent in English proficiency.

RHS has achieved 16th in in the state through our testing scores and AP and IB testing.

Government teacher Elizabeth Seabreeze said, “[We achieved number 16 by] a higher percentage of students taking the AP and IB and a higher percentage passing also hopefully less of an achievement gap between minority students and non-minority students.”

According to News Magazine the percentage of disadvantaged students who are proficient is 83.4. While the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students is negative 13.2 percent.

According to Seabreeze MD has always been close to the top of the list with our high standards in education.

“I think that it’s pretty fantastic that we demand so much of students in schools,” Seabreeze said.

For RHS AP participation is 71 percent and the exam passing rate is 59 percent. Also the average number of AP exams taken per student in the AP program is 3.1.

The IB program has less participants with only 18 percent of students taking it but has just as more success with 87 percent of those students passing the exams.