Best High Schools Chicago area (Bloomington, Hamilton: population, kids, reputation)

[huskies!101]

Umm??? Excuse me!!! What about Naperville North who plays all of those teams you just listed?? Don't leave us hangin'!

[mas23]

St ignatius
Naperville north (i think)
Latin
Whitney young
New trier
Hinsdale central

[cubssoxfan]

This was posted by Chet Everett on another thread:

The sites that let folks "give input" pretty much turn into a "whose baby is prettier" waste of time.

US News does a good job of stacking up the results of the ACT tests for high schools and then compiling the results that students have on the tests for college credit known as AP tests that have shown to correlate well with college readiness.

If you then track back to the raw numbers as presented by the site run without bias by NIU so you can determine the better performing feeder schools.


If you want a summary of the one dimesional ranking the SunTimes site is accurate.








http://education.usnews.rankingsandr...y+/detail+less

Interactive Illinois Report Card


2009 Illinois Report Cards Search:

[Northwest Indiana]

...I think we can throw in Munster High School as an option as well

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by Northwest Indiana

...I think we can throw in Munster High School as an option as well

Empirical evidence is always stronger. By chance, do you have any for NW IN HS's and how they compare with IL HS's? Have always been curious.

[slow_nerve_action]

Originally Posted by Northwest Indiana

...I think we can throw in Munster High School as an option as well

For now, yes....the school has a lot of work to do in regards to creeping class sizes, though.

And the recent stunt the administrators pulled makes me wonder where their heads are at.

[Northwest Indiana]

Originally Posted by cubssoxfan

Empirical evidence is always stronger. By chance, do you have any for NW IN HS's and how they compare with IL HS's? Have always been curious.

The closest measure would be Newsweek rankings. Munster High School usually ranks every other year. The only other evidence I have would be anecdotes from people who moved here or from here and compared the school systems. Also, since Illinois uses ACT and Indiana uses SAT, it is usually more difficult to determine as the amount of students who take the ACT in Indiana is not very high. But here are the scores from 2000-2008: MHS ACT scores. High Schools in Illinois that people I have known feel Munster is comparable to academically are:

Hinsdale South
L-W East & Central
Carl Sandburg
Glenbard West
Glenbard South

(These were either people who lived in Munster and moved to those areas, or moved from those areas to Munster)

I should note that there are some folks who have moved from Deerfield or Highland Park and have been perfectly fine with the schools here although they didn't necessarily say the schools were comparable. Of course this is just what I have experienced, not necessarily what is concrete.

Also, many people who have moved from Naperville to Carmel, Indiana (arguably similar towns with respect to their regions) say that Carmel High School--just north of Indianapolis--is just as good as the ones in Naperville. And Munster, Carmel, (along with Zionsville) have the top public high schools in the state.

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by Northwest Indiana

The closest measure would be Newsweek rankings. Munster High School usually ranks every other year. The only other evidence I have would be anecdotes from people who moved here or from here and compared the school systems. Also, since Illinois uses ACT and Indiana uses SAT, it is usually more difficult to determine as the amount of students who take the ACT in Indiana is not very high. But here are the scores from 2000-2008: MHS ACT scores. High Schools in Illinois that people I have known feel Munster is comparable to academically are:

Hinsdale South
L-W East & Central
Carl Sandburg
Glenbard West
Glenbard South

(These were either people who lived in Munster and moved to those areas, or moved from those areas to Munster)

I should note that there are some folks who have moved from Deerfield or Highland Park and have been perfectly fine with the schools here although they didn't necessarily say the schools were comparable. Of course this is just what I have experienced, not necessarily what is concrete.

I believe some of the North Shore HS's use SAT since the IVY League schools prefer it vs. ACT. I know "feel" plays a part in being satified with kid's schools but empirical evidence speaks much loader. And I'm not taking an anti-IN slant; I have often wondered if IN schools, overall, aren't better than IL schools.

[Northwest Indiana]

Originally Posted by cubssoxfan

I believe some of the North Shore HS's use SAT since the IVY League schools prefer it vs. ACT. I know "feel" plays a part in being satified with kid's schools but empirical evidence speaks much loader. And I'm not taking an anti-IN slant; I have often wondered if IN schools, overall, aren't better than IL schools.

I completely understand you and agree with you. However, with the different requirements that states have, it is really hard to get solid empirical evidence. As far as the quality of Indiana schools as a whole, I can only say that while Illinois has many excellent districts that are contiguous with each other, Indiana not so much. The other high schools located by Munster are not very good. Lake Central and Crown Point high schools are the most comparable to Munster in northwest Indiana but not in the Chicago area as a whole.

Down by Indianapolis, Zionsville, Carmel, and Hamilton Southeastern schools are the best in that area (and along with Munster, in Indiana as well). However, those are the only contiguous districts that are excellent. The other districts are spotty in their performance.

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by Northwest Indiana

I completely understand you and agree with you. However, with the different requirements that states have, it is really hard to get solid empirical evidence. As far as the quality of Indiana schools as a whole, I can only say that while Illinois has many excellent districts that are contiguous with each other, Indiana not so much. The other high schools located by Munster are not very good. Lake Central and Crown Point high schools are the most comparable to Munster in northwest Indiana but not in the Chicago area as a whole.

Down by Indianapolis, Zionsville, Carmel, and Hamilton Southeastern schools are the best in that area (and along with Munster, in Indiana as well). However, those are the only contiguous districts that are excellent. The other districts are spotty in their performance.

I was impressed by the ACT scores both from Munster and statewide, but also took them with a grain of salt believing it is probably a very small sample size.