The Preuss School at UC San Diego
Makes Newsweek’s Top 10 High
School Rankings for Third Year in Row

UCSD’s charter school only California school in top 10

June 11, 2009

By Pat JaCoby

In its newly issued rankings, Newsweek has named The Preuss School at the University of California, San Diego among the nation’s top 10 high schools, the only California school to be listed in that elite top 10 category.

Newsweek listed The Preuss School in 10th place among 1,500 public high schools in the nation, duplicating its 10th ranking in 2007. Last year it ranked 6th. Each of the past three years The Preuss School has been the only school in California to make the top 10.

The ranking system was developed by Newsweek using a simple scale which divides the total number of Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2008, divided by the number of graduating seniors.

Jay Matthews, Newsweek editor, said that “many Americans have never heard of AP or IB tests, the only two international high school programs that consistently demand wide reading and rigorous thoughts. The list of high schools shown in our listing ranks schools that try the hardest to involve students in these courses and tests, very different from the way schools usually are measured by test scores and college acceptances. AP and IB programs have evolved into proven devices for inspiring first-rate academic work by even disadvantaged teenagers.”

This June’s graduating class at The Preuss School totals 96, with 94 percent of the graduating class accepted to four-year colleges.

The Preuss School is a middle and high school dedicated to providing an intensive college preparatory education for motivated low-income students who will become the first in their families to graduate from college. The school is jointly chartered by the San Diego Unified School District and the University of California, San Diego.

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby, 858-534-7404 or pjacoby@ucsd.edu