QVHS Rates High in Washington Post High School Challenge

In the world of rankings, Quaker Valley High School got a good one this week from the Washington Post's High School Challenge.

Quaker Valley ranked 12th out of 31 schools that made the list from Pennsylvania. 

The Challenge Index measures how effectively a school prepares its students for college, according to The Washington Post's website. Since 1998, The Post’s Jay Mathews has ranked Washington-area public high schools. In 2011, The Post expanded its research to high schools across the United States.

"The formula is simple: Divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or other college-level tests a school gave in 2010 by the number of graduating seniors," the Washington Post website states. "While not a measure of the overall quality of the school, the rating can reveal the level of a high school’s commitment to preparing average students for college."

Of the 1,900 public high schools ranked nationally, Quaker Valley High School was ranked 1,077  with an index of 1.710. For the Northeast region, Quaker Valley High School was ranked 178.

Quaker Valley's website notes the school offers 18 AP courses and 14 interscholastic programs. Currently, nearly half of students take and pass at least one AP exam during their high school careers. All students are required to take the AP exam for each course in which they are enrolled.  The district's goal is for every college-bound student to take at least one AP course prior to graduation.

An information page for QVHS said the average SAT score is 1,642.

The rating does not count the scores received on the tests; it counts only the number of tests given, according to The Washington Post website.

 Other local schools in the listing and their rankings include:

Upper St. Clair, third in Pennsylvania and 365 in U.S.;

Pine-Richland, sixth in Pennsylvania and 806 in U.S.;

Mt. Lebanon, 22nd in Pennsylvania and 1,456 in U.S.;

Hampton, 23 in Pennsylvania and 1,561 in U.S.;

North Hills, 24 in Pennsylvania and 1,646 in U.S.;

Pittsburgh Taylor Allderdice, 26 in Pennsylvania and 1,699 in U.S.;

North Allegheny, 29 in Pennsylvania and 1,759 in U.S.

The High School Challenge does not include certain high-achieving magnet or charter high schools, the website states.

"The Challenge Index is designed to identify schools that have done the best job in persuading average students to take college-level courses and tests. It does not work with schools that have no, or almost no, average students. We put those schools on our Public Elites list," according to the FAQs by Jay Mathews.