U.S. News recently released its annual high school rankings. Here’s how Lower Merion High School fared.<\/p>\n
Aug 19, 2026 9:41 AM EDT | Updated Aug 19, 2026 9:46 AM EDT<\/p>\n
ARDMORE, PA \u2014 Lower Merion has one of the best public high schools in Pennsylvania, according to U.S. News & World Report.<\/p>\n
U.S. News recently released its 2026-2027 Best High Schools<\/a> list, which evaluated more than 27,000 public institutions for college readiness, test scores and more.<\/p>\n \n Subscribe<\/a>\n<\/p>\n In the new list, Lower Merion High School ranks eighth in Pennsylvania and 380th nationally. It’s also the 396th-best STEM high school, according to U.S. News.<\/p>\n Lower Merion’s Score<\/p>\n U.S. News used six ranking indicators to determine each school’s overall score:<\/p>\n college readiness (accounting for 30 percent of each school’s score)college curriculum breadth (10 percent)state assessment proficiency (20 percent)state assessment performance (20 percent)performance of underserved students (10 percent)graduation rate (10 percent) <\/p>\n Overall, LMHS scored 97.88 out of 100<\/a>.<\/p>\n The publication primarily weighed data from the 2023-24 school year. At that time, LMHS had a 96 percent graduation rate, and 52 percent of students passed a least on AP exam.<\/p>\n LMHS also served a more economically diverse population than many other high-ranking Main Line schools, with 22 percent of students considered economically disadvantaged.<\/p>\n Controversy Around The School Rankings<\/p>\n U.S. News says its annual school rankings give families a way to evaluate local education options.<\/p>\n “Every student deserves a pathway to success, and that journey often begins with selecting the right school,” Dr. LaMont Jones, the U.S. managing editor for education, said in a statement. “The 2026-2027 Best High Schools rankings empower families with the valuable data and transparency they need to help make the best educational choices for them.<\/p>\n U.S. News has some of the most influential school-rankings lists in the country. The publication even licenses its name so schools can use their ranking in promotional materials.<\/p>\n But with a heavy emphasis on AP and standardized test scores, critics say the rankings lack nuance and heavily favor wealthy communities.<\/p>\n This points to a larger problem with American education as a whole, according to a 2023 blog post<\/a> on the National Education Policy Center’s website.<\/p>\n “By reducing lots of different school quality factors to a single number, all U.S. News rankings oversimplify academic quality,” wrote Harry Feder, who leads a nonprofit<\/a> that’s critical of standardized testing. “Because U.S. News seeks to rank in volume with insufficient investigative resources, its criteria fail to capture the nuances of the complex institutions.”<\/p>\n