According to U.S. News, one of the most popular high school ranking platforms, this school is ranked fourth in Maryland. Niche gives this school a 98.67/100 grade. The only schools that rank above Wootton are Poolesville High School, Eastern Technical High School and Walt Whitman High School. Poolesville and Whitman are in Montgomery County and Eastern is in Baltimore County. While some might applaud this school’s high rankings, it is worth asking how valuable and accurate the rankings are.
U.S. News ranks schools based on several factors including academics. More specifically, U.S. News breaks the overall ranking down into subcomponents: the college readiness index rank, college curriculum breadth index rank, state assessment proficiency rank, state assessment performance rank, and graduation rate rank. College readiness index rank determines how well schools prepare students for college, which this school ranks fourth in the state for. College curriculum breadth index rank accounts for how many 12th graders took and passed AP exams; this school ranks third in the state.
The state assessment proficiency rank determines how scores on graduate requirement assessments compare to other schools, which this school ranks seventh in the state. State assessment performance ranks “how aggregated scores on state assessments compare with U.S. News’ expectations given the proportions of students who are Black, Hispanic and from low-income households,” which this school ranks 16th in the state for. Lastly graduation rate rank accounts for the percentage of students who graduate high school, which this school ranks first in.
School pride plays a big role in student’s opinions of the rankings. If a school is ranked high, and a student who goes there has school pride, they are likely to support these rankings. “I think Wootton is the best school in the county,” sophomore Nathan Downie said.
Community members see a variety of reasons why this school is ranked so highly. One widely agreed-upon reason is student work ethic. “We’re ranked so highly because we have many people that study ridiculously hard,” Downie said.
As important as academics are, students feel that extracurriculars should also be accounted for in these rankings. According to Lee, taking the performance of extracurriculars would make these rankings more accurate. “Ranking should include sports performance, club performance and building quality,” sophomore Jeremiah Lee said.
Those who find the rankings useful say they may create competition between schools. “I am for school academic rankings because it makes schools more competitive with each other, leading to better teaching,” Lee said.
Critics of the rankings argue that if you don’t attend a school, you don’t know what it’s like, making it hard to compare. “It’s difficult for me to answer because I don’t really know the other schools; there are schools with special programs. I think it’s hard to do the ranking because I think every school has its own strengths and weaknesses,” counselor Elizabeth Robinson said.
Another criticism of the rankings is the focus on test scores. “Some kids are great test takers, some are not, it doesn’t tell the true level of that kid, it doesn’t tell their academic character, they just don’t perform well, there’s too much emphasis on data regarding standardized testing,” Robinson said.
