CLEVELAND, Ohio – Eight Greater Cleveland high schools, led by Solon and Rocky River, are among the best 25 public high schools in Ohio, according to the 2024 U.S. News and World Best High Schools rankings released Tuesday.

Tops in Ohio, according to the publication, is Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, beating out last year’s top Ohio school, Bexley High School in the Columbus area. Madeira High School outside of Cincinnati is third.

Solon ranked fourth and Rocky River fifth statewide, both higher spots than the previous year. Nationally, Solon is 220th and Rocky River 232nd, while Walnut Hills is 118th.

Other Greater Cleveland high schools in the top 25 in Ohio are Chagrin Falls (No. 7), Hudson (No. 9), Brecksville-Broadview Heights (No. 13), Kenston (No. 15), Aurora (No. 20) and Bay High School(No. 24).

Ranked in the range of No. 26 to No. 50 are Revere (No. 27), Cleveland John Hay Early College High School (No. 29), Highland (No. 32), West Geauga (No. 33), Avon Lake (No. 34), Cleveland School of Science & Medicine (No. 36) Orange (No. 38), Avon (No. 40) and Strongsville (No. 46).

The best-performing STEM school in the state was Perrysburg, ranked No. 109 in the country. Rocky River followed this, ranked No. 132.

Nationally, Ohio is the 26th best state for high schools, tying with Kentucky, according to U.S. News. This is a three-spot increase from last year’s rankings.

Common traits among the highest-ranked schools are those whose students scored high on state assessments for math, reading and science. These schools also had strong results for underserved student performance, focusing on students who are Black, Hispanic, or from low-income households, performance on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams, curriculum breadth and graduation rates, U.S. News said.

U.S. News 2024 Best High Schools Ohio Rankings

A total of 705 Ohio public high schools were ranked. Of those, 35 were in the top 5% nationally and 61 were in the top 10% nationally.

The bottom 30% of schools are grouped and do not have a definitive rank. Below is the list and the methodology used.

Methodology and Qualifications

Rankings were determined by summing the weighted scores of six categories.

Two criteria, college readiness (30%) and college curriculum breadth (10%), involved 12th graders who took or earned qualifying scores on AP or IB exams and the number of advanced exams they tested in. If a school did not offer these exams, their scores were determined without these criteria and were not impacted negatively.

Two criteria, State Assessment Proficiency (20%) and State Assessment Performance (20%), were determined by each state’s standardized testing on math, reading, and science. The scores were then compared to other schools in their state and nationally.

The fifth criterion is Underserved Student Performance (10%), which evaluates how well Black, Hispanic and low-income students scored on state assessments compared with the average for non-underserved students among schools in the same state.

The final criterion, Graduation Rate (10%), is among students who entered ninth grade in the 2017-2018 academic year and graduated in four years.

To determine the top science, technology, engineering and math schools, U.S. News looked at its top 1,000 ranked high schools from the national rankings. Then, it evaluated the participation and success of those schools’ AP students on the science and math exams.

Zachary Smith is the data reporter for cleveland.com. You can reach him at zsmith@cleveland.com.