Best Public High Schools in Washington
A statewide ranking of Washington's public high schools is largely a ranking of King County. Of the twenty-five schools eligible at the top of this list, more than twenty are inside King, with Bainbridge Island in Kitsap County as the only major non-King County entrant in the top ten. The reason is partly demographic — King County concentrates the state's white-collar tech workforce and its highest household incomes — and partly structural: the Lake Washington, Bellevue, and Issaquah school districts have been deliberately stocking their attendance zones with new comprehensives and choice programs over the past two decades, and those investments now show up clearly in measured outcomes.
Nikola Tesla STEM in Redmond leads the state on this composite. The lottery-admit Lake Washington choice school enrolls about 600 students total, runs an integrated science-engineering-humanities sequence, and posts a 1402 SAT mean alongside a 100 percent AP participation rate. Skyline, Mercer Island, and Eastlake follow at ranks two through four — three large comprehensives that each clear 1285 SAT and graduate above 96 percent of their seniors on time. North Creek (rank 5), built in 2017 as Northshore's fourth high school, completes the top five despite being the youngest comprehensive on the list.
Bainbridge High School at sixth is the only non-Eastside, non-Seattle public to crack the top ten. Bainbridge serves the entire island as the sole comprehensive in its district; the school's 1260 SAT mean and 75 percent SBA math proficiency reflect the island's heavily credentialed commuter population. Issaquah High at seventh and Redmond High at eighth are large 2,300-plus comprehensives whose AP pass rates (above 91 percent) are among the highest in the state. Liberty Senior High in Renton (rank 9) is geographically the southernmost school in the top ten and is part of the Issaquah district. Newport in Bellevue, at tenth, completes the list.
A few patterns deserve attention. Lake Washington School District places four schools in the top ten — Tesla, Eastlake, Redmond, and (just outside) Lake Washington High — more than any other district. Bellevue School District's most-distinguished school by college outcomes, Interlake, does not appear in this top ten because its sub-80 percent four-year graduation rate (a function of how the district counts IB-Diploma seekers who take an extra year) drags its composite score; Interlake leads the parallel Polaris/Harvard-Princeton-MIT ranking instead.
A note on scope: this ranking covers public high schools statewide and orders them by a composite of SAT mean, four-year graduation rate, AP exam pass rate, and SBA proficiency from OSPI's most recent published Report Card. SAT means come from OSPI's annual SAT-by-school PDF. Polaris (selective-college matriculation) is shown for context. Charter, tribal compact, and option schools are eligible if classified as public; private schools — Lakeside, Holy Names, Charles Wright, Eastside Catholic, Seattle Prep — appear in the parallel private-school ranking.
Ranked schools
- 001NIKOLA TESLA STEM HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+3.74σ
- 002SKYLINE HIGH SCHOOLISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.87σ
- 003MERCER ISLAND HIGH SCHOOLMERCER ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.85σ
- 004EASTLAKE HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.75σ
- 005NORTH CREEK HIGH SCHOOLNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.66σ
- 006BAINBRIDGE HIGH SCHOOLBAINBRIDGE ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT · KITSAP+2.56σ
- 007ISSAQUAH HIGH SCHOOLISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.54σ
- 008REDMOND HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.41σ
- 009LIBERTY SR HIGH SCHOOLISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.38σ
- 010NEWPORT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.37σ
- 011WOODINVILLE HSNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.25σ
- 012LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+2.22σ
- 013INGLEMOOR HSNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.19σ
- 014GLACIER PEAK HIGH SCHOOLSNOHOMISH SCHOOL DISTRICT · SNOHOMISH+2.16σ
- 015CURTIS SENIOR HIGHUNIVERSITY PLACE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE+2.15σ
- 016W F WEST HIGH SCHOOLCHEHALIS SCHOOL DISTRICT · LEWIS+2.08σ
- 017VASHON ISLAND HIGH SCHOOLVASHON ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.03σ
- 018UNION HIGH SCHOOLEVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT (CLARK) · CLARK+1.98σ
- 019SELAH HIGH SCHOOLSELAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · YAKIMA+1.97σ
- 020CAMAS HIGH SCHOOLCAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK+1.95σ
- 021WALLA WALLA HIGH SCHOOLWALLA WALLA PUBLIC SCHOOLS · WALLA WALLA+1.94σ
- 022RIDGELINE HIGH SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE+1.93σ
- 023BOTHELL HIGH SCHOOLNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.91σ
- 024HOCKINSON HIGH SCHOOLHOCKINSON SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK+1.91σ
- 025ANACORTES HIGH SCHOOLANACORTES SCHOOL DISTRICT · SKAGIT+1.86σ
All rankings · Live map