U.S. News & World Report released its 2026-2027 Best High Schools rankings this week, evaluating roughly 27,000 public high schools and ranking nearly 18,000 of them. Central Magnet School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, took the top spot.
Looking at the rankings, nearly every school near the top either admits students by application and test score, enrolls only a few hundred students, or both.
The national top 10
Enrollment figures are from federal data.
| Rank | School | City | State | Students |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Central Magnet School | Murfreesboro | TN | 1,222 |
| 2 | Signature School | Evansville | IN | 384 |
| 3 | Julia R. Masterman Secondary | Philadelphia | PA | 1,183 |
| 4 | Davidson Academy | Reno | NV | 169 |
| 5 | School Without Walls | Washington | DC | 606 |
| 6 | Thomas Jefferson High for Science and Technology | Alexandria | VA | 2,108 |
| 7 | Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology | Lawrenceville | GA | 1,304 |
| 8 | The School for the Talented and Gifted | Dallas | TX | 555 |
| 9 | Nikola Tesla STEM High School | Redmond | WA | 605 |
| 10 | Science Academy STEM Magnet | North Hollywood | CA | 536 |
Georgia families will notice Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology at No. 7, a selective magnet in Gwinnett County that has become the state's flagship for STEM. It is the highest-ranked school in Georgia.
Charters, BASIS, and the STEM list
The charter story is the most striking finding in the release. Charter schools claimed 23% of the top 100 spots, far above their share of American high schools. One school network is prominently featured: Arizona's BASIS charter chain placed 12 of its schools in the overall national top 100 and took three of the top five STEM spots.
| Top charter schools | Top STEM schools |
|---|---|
| 1. Signature School (IN) | 1. High Technology High School (NJ) |
| 2. BASIS Oro Valley (AZ) | 2. BASIS Ahwatukee (AZ) |
| 3. BASIS Goodyear (AZ) | 3. BASIS Chandler (AZ) |
| 4. Haas Hall Bentonville (AR) | 4. Edison Academy Magnet (NJ) |
| 5. BASIS Prescott (AZ) | 5. BASIS Scottsdale (AZ) |
California and New Jersey have the most STEM-focused schools overall, 96 and 50 respectively, but Arizona's network dominates the top of that list.
States and metros
Massachusetts again leads the states, with 47% of its ranked high schools placing in the top quarter nationally, followed by New Jersey at 44% and Maryland at 43%. Those three have been fixtures at the top for years, and they share high per-student spending and dense, well-funded suburban districts.
The metro list holds the surprise. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara leads with 60% of its ranked schools in the national top 25%, which fits every expectation about Silicon Valley wealth. Second is McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, at 59%. McAllen sits on the Mexican border, is overwhelmingly Hispanic, and has a poverty rate well above the national average. It is the single most interesting data point in the release, and a useful corrective to the assumption that strong high schools require an affluent tax base. Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin, is third at 56%.
What the list does not tell you
Look at the top 10 in the list again. Central Magnet, Masterman, Thomas Jefferson, Gwinnett School of Mathematics, the Dallas talented-and-gifted school, Tesla STEM, and Science Academy are all selective, admitting students by application, test score, or both. Davidson Academy serves profoundly gifted students. Several enroll only a few hundred students: Davidson at 169, Edison Academy at 173, High Technology at 284, Signature at 384.
That matters because the methodology leans heavily on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate participation and pass rates. A school that admits already high-achieving students and enrolls nearly all of them in AP courses will score extremely well, largely because of who walks in the door. That is not a knock on these schools, many of which are genuinely excellent. It just means the list mostly identifies where strong students are concentrated, not where a school adds the most to a typical student's learning. The rankings do include a measure of how well schools serve underserved students, which is a real improvement, but the AP and IB weighting still tilts the outcome.
The practical read for families: a top-100 ranking tells you a school is academically intense and probably competitive to enter. It does not tell you your neighborhood high school is failing, and it does not tell you which school is the better fit for your child. We unpack that difference in how school ratings actually work, and if a selective school is on your radar, how to get into a magnet school covers the application path. Georgia families can also compare against our own data in the top rated high schools in Georgia.
Data note: rankings reflect U.S. News & World Report's 2026-2027 Best High Schools, calculated with RTI International using data from the 2023-24 school year. Enrollment figures are from federal (NCES) data for 2024-25 and may differ slightly from the year the rankings used.
Sources
U.S. News & World Report: Best High Schools National Rankings
U.S. News: How we calculated the rankings
Enrollment figures from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data, 2024-25.
