How Westwood Area Schools Fared in U. S. News's State, National Rankings of Public High Schools

Westwood, Dover, and Medfield have high schools ranked in the top 25 of Massachusetts’s public high schools, and the Commonwealth leads the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s (U.S. News’s) 2025-2026 Best High Schools
rankings of public high schools, according to an announcement by U.S. News on August 19 and a review of the rankings.

Below is a chart compiled by Westwood Minute that shows how area public high schools fared in the U.S. News Best High School rankings within Massachusetts and also nationally:

In a state by state assessment, Massachusetts topped the national ranking, with 43.2 percent of its schools, or nearly half, making it to the top quarter of the ranking. Of all the states, Massachusetts had the largest proportion of high schools in the top 25 percent of the 2025-2026 Best High Schools rankings. Connecticut was second with 40.9 percent and New Jersey was third with 40.4 percent. Maryland was fourth with 39.6 percent and Florida was fifth with 38.2 percent. Only twelve states had at least 30 percent of their schools in the top 25 percent of the rankings.

Maine was the only state which did not give the publication permission to use its schools’ Advanced Placement data in the rankings, and as a result, it had the lower proportion of its schools in the top 25 percent.

Along with reviewing whether a high school’s students took and earned qualifying scores in college-level Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams, the Best High Schools rankings looked at schools with students having outstanding scores in math, reading, and science state assessments, college readiness and high proportions of graduates. The rankings evaluated schools based on how effectively they serve all students, including underserved populations. They also considered curriculum breadth and overall student outcomes. 

Overall, the national rankings include nearly 18,000 public high schools, using the most current data from the 2022-2023 school year. The Massachusetts state rankings include 366 schools.

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