Best Public High Schools in Seattle + Eastside
Seattle and the Eastside contain the densest concentration of high-performing public high schools in Washington. The Eastside has long been the academic core of the metro on test-based outcomes — three school districts (Lake Washington, Bellevue, Issaquah) account for nearly every school in the top ten on a composite of SAT mean and four-year graduation rate. Nikola Tesla STEM in Redmond, Lake Washington School District's lottery-admit selective STEM magnet, leads the metro with a 1402 SAT mean — the highest of any non-magnet public in the state — and a 100 percent AP participation rate.
Bellevue School District's flagships split between two campuses. Newport feeds the south Bellevue and Somerset hill neighborhoods. Interlake hosts the district's highly-capable hub and sits seventh here, credited its five-year completion rate — the composite uses each school's strongest published completion cohort, which matters for IB programs built around a planned fifth year — while also leading the Polaris-driven Harvard / Princeton / MIT placements list (its 13 HPM acceptances 2022-2025 are second only to Lakeside statewide). International School — BSD's 6-12 IB Continuum magnet — sits parallel to Interlake in the district's choice portfolio. Mercer Island, an autonomous one-high-school district on its namesake island, leads the Seattle-side cohort on combined measured outcomes (1323 SAT mean, 96 percent graduation, 77 percent SBA math).
Seattle Public Schools contributes Lincoln (reopened 2019 in Wallingford), Roosevelt, Ballard, and Garfield to the cross-shore ranking. The Issaquah plateau schools — Skyline, Eastlake, and Issaquah High itself — round out the strong Eastside comprehensives. Bainbridge and the urban Seattle schools sit further down on this composite but appear high on other lenses (HPM, SAT-only, or graduation rate).
Ranked schools
- 001NIKOLA TESLA STEM HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+3.63σ
- 002MERCER ISLAND HIGH SCHOOLMERCER ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+3.09σ
- 003EASTLAKE HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.80σ
- 004SKYLINE HIGH SCHOOLISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.78σ
- 005NEWPORT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.65σ
- 006ISSAQUAH HIGH SCHOOLISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.30σ
- 007INTERLAKE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.29σ
- 008WOODINVILLE HSNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.23σ
- 009LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+2.22σ
- 010REDMOND HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.13σ
- 011INGLEMOOR HSNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.11σ
- 012BELLEVUE HIGH SCHOOLBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.98σ
- 013CEDARCREST HIGH SCHOOLRIVERVIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.91σ
- 014BOTHELL HIGH SCHOOLNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.82σ
- 015LAKE WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.60σ
- 016ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+1.43σ
- 017SHORECREST HIGH SCHOOLSHORELINE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.35σ
- 018BALLARD HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+1.30σ
- 019SHOREWOOD HIGH SCHOOLSHORELINE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.28σ
- 020JUANITA HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.15σ
- 021GARFIELD HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+0.73σ
- 022WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+0.55σ
- 023SAMMAMISH SENIOR HIGHBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+0.53σ
- 024INGRAHAM HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+0.48σ
- 025HAZEN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLRENTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING-0.57σ
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