How Middletown South/North Rank On U.S. News 'Best High School' List

Carly Baldwin
Updated ·3 min read

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — This week, U.S. News & World Report released its 2022 rankings, listing nearly 24,000 high schools across the nation.

Schools are ranked on their performance on state-required tests, graduation and how well they prepare students for college. Here are all the high school rankings for the state of New Jersey.

And here is how Middletown South and North ranked. High Tech High School, a magnet pre-engineering school in Lincroft, was perennially voted in the top five public high schools in the state. (Click on the school name to see their full profile):

Middletown South: Ranked 124th in the state of New Jersey. The AP® participation rate at Middletown High School South is 55%. The total minority enrollment is 10%, and 6% of students are economically disadvantaged. Overall Score 82.93/100

  • 55% Took at Least One AP® Exam

  • 44% Passed at Least One AP® Exam

  • 48% Mathematics Proficiency

  • 68% Reading Proficiency

  • 27% Science Proficiency

  • 98% Graduation Rate

Middletown North: Ranked 313rd in the state of New Jersey. The AP® participation rate at Middletown High School North is 34%. The total minority enrollment is 17%, and 17% of students are economically disadvantaged. Overall Score 42.37/100

  • 34% Took at Least One AP® Exam

  • 23% Passed at Least One AP® Exam

  • 20% Mathematics Proficiency

  • 44% Reading Proficiency

  • 16% Science Proficiency

  • 93% Graduation Rate

High Technology High School in Lincroft (a magnet school; students have to apply to get in): Ranked 4th best high school in the state of New Jersey, and 65th best high school in the nation. It is a pre-engineering academy. High Technology High School’s curriculum is engineering-centric, with courses in civil engineering and architecture, computer-integrated manufacturing and digital electronics. Students at High Technology High School can earn college credit for core coursework through partnerships with Rochester Institute of Technology, Georgian Court University and Brookdale Community College. High Tech is operated in a partnership between the Monmouth County vo-tech school district and Brookdale Community College.

  • 99% Took at Least One AP® Exam

  • 99% Passed at Least One AP® Exam

  • 98% Mathematics Proficiency

  • 99% Reading Proficiency

  • 100% Graduation Rate

Read more: These NJ High Schools Are Among 2022's Best: U.S. News

But, U.S. News & World Report school rankings have their critics. James Fallows, a former U.S. News editor, even called them "meaningless" in an interview with NPR.

"The reason they started doing it back in the early 1980s under the guidance of a man named Mel Elfin, was because it was a brilliant business strategy," Fallows said. "By appealing to the human desire for rankings and knowing where you stand and where somebody else stands, they were able to make a very strong part of their business, which is now basically the only part of their business."

U.S. News, however, contends that the rankings help parents make better-informed decisions about their children's education.

Ninety percent of the rankings incorporate performances on AP and IB exams and standardized tests, while the remaining 10 percent is the graduation rate. The data used in this year's ranking is from the 2019-20 academic school year. U.S. News adjusted its calculation of these measures to account for the impact COVID-19 had on schools in the 2019-20 school year.

Read more about the methodology here.

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This article originally appeared on the Middletown Patch