These are the top high schools in the Raleigh and Durham-Chapel Hill metro areas in 2022
Three Triangle schools were ranked both among the best high schools in the nation and in the Raleigh and Durham-Chapel Hill metro areas by U.S. News & World Report.
Raleigh Charter High, Woods Charter School and Wake STEM Early College all ranked in the top 500 in the U.S. News 2022 Best High Schools List released this week.
Raleigh Charter and Wake STEM were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the Raleigh metropolitan area. Woods Charter ranked No. 1 in the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area.
U.S. News still lists the school as Wake NCSU STEM Early College. Wake STEM still partners with N.C. State but dropped the university from its name when the lease for its building on campus wasn’t renewed.
The website’s annual report ranked 17,843 U.S. public high schools based on college readiness, proficiency on state exams, performance on state exams, performance of underserved students, college curriculum breadth and graduation rates.
U.S. News has been rating high schools since 2007.
RTI International, a research firm based in Research Triangle Park, crunched the numbers for the 2022 list.
Raleigh, Durham in top metro areas
The rankings were based on 2019-20 school year data when the U.S. Department of Education waived the requirement for states to give standardized tests due to the pandemic. As a result, test scores for the prior three years were used instead.
More than a fifth of North Carolina’s high schools (21.3%) ranked in the top 25% nationally. That tied with South Carolina for 28th place. North Carolina ranked No. 27 the prior year.
The Raleigh metro area remained 12th among the nation’s 927 metropolitan areas in terms of having the highest proportion of its public high schools ranked in the top 25% nationally. The Raleigh metro area finished higher than places such as Virginia Beach, New York City, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas.
Durham-Chapel Hill ranked 32nd among metro areas after not making the top 41 list last year.
Top Raleigh metro area schools
The top 10 schools in the Raleigh metro area (which includes Wake, Johnston and Franklin counties) are:
▪ Raleigh Charter High School (No. 3 in North Carolina and No. 123 nationally)
▪ Wake STEM Early College HIgh School in Cary (No. 6 in the state and No. 257 nationally)
▪ Panther Creek High School in Cary (No. 18 in the state and No. 614 nationally)
▪ Green Hope High School in Cary (No. 19 in the state and No. 633 nationally)
▪ Wake Young Women’s Leadership Academy in Raleigh (No. 32 in the state and No. 1,188 nationally)
▪ Triangle Math and Science Academy in Cary (No. 35 in the state and No. 1,287 nationally)
▪ Apex High School (No. 42 in the state and No. 1,546 nationally)
▪ Apex Friendship High School (No. 43 in the state and No. 1,599 nationally)
▪ Franklin Academy in Wake Forest (No. 45 in the state and No. 1,699 nationally)
▪ Heritage High School in Wake Forest (No. 58 in the state and No. 2,128 nationally)
Top Durham-Chapel Hill schools
The top 10 schools in the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area (which includes Durham, Orange, Chatham, Granville and Person counties) are:
▪ Woods Charter School in Chatham County (No. 4 in the state and No. 172 nationally)
▪ Research Triangle High School in Durham (No. 12 in the state and No. 554 nationally)
▪ East Chapel Hill High School (No. 13 in the state and No. 558 nationally)
▪ Chapel Hill High School (No. 24 in the state and No. 780 nationally)
▪ Durham School of the Arts (No. 27 in the state and No. 901 nationally)
▪ Carrboro High School (No. 29 in the state and No. 997 nationally)
▪ City of Medicine Academy in Durham (No. 44 in the state and No. 1,634 nationally)
▪ Oxford Preparatory School in Oxford (No. 47 in the state and No. 1,751 nationally)
▪ Eno River Academy in Hillsborough (No. 53 in the state and No. 2,028 nationally)
▪ Roxboro Community School (No. 56 in the state and No. 2,107 nationally)
Charter schools make up three of the top 10 schools in the Raleigh list and five of the top 10 in the Durham list.
Charter schools are taxpayer-funded schools that are exempt from some of the rules that traditional public schools must follow. For instance, they’re not required to provide school bus service or participate in the federal school lunch program.
They also have more flexibility in how they spend their money, don’t have to follow the school calendar law and don’t need all their teachers to be licensed.
Read the full report at www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools.
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 11:04 AM with the headline "These are the top high schools in the Raleigh and Durham-Chapel Hill metro areas in 2022."
