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, the large majority are inside King, with Bainbridge Island (Kitsap), Glacier Peak (Snohomish), and Camas (Clark) the only entrants from outside the county 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. Mercer Island, Eastlake, and Skyline 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 first of three schools from outside King County in the top ten, joined by Glacier Peak on the Snohomish–Lake Stevens line at eighth and Camas, the Clark County standout, at ninth. 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. Newport in Bellevue takes seventh, and Issaquah High — a large 2,400-student comprehensive whose AP pass rate (above 91 percent) is among the highest in the state — completes the top ten.
A few patterns deserve attention. Lake Washington School District places Tesla and Eastlake in the top ten, with Redmond High and Lake Washington High in the tier just behind. Interlake — Bellevue's IB and highly-capable hub, and the leader of the parallel Polaris/Harvard-Princeton-MIT ranking — sits eleventh, and Bellevue High twenty-third; both are credited their five-year completion rates here, the cohort that fits schools whose IB-Diploma students take a planned fifth year.
A note on scope: this ranking covers public high schools statewide and orders them by a composite of SAT mean and graduation rate from OSPI's most recent published Report Card, crediting each school its strongest published completion rate — the four- or five-year cohort, whichever is higher. 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+3.63σ
- 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
- 005NORTH CREEK HIGH SCHOOLNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.74σ
- 006BAINBRIDGE HIGH SCHOOLBAINBRIDGE ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT · KITSAP+2.69σ
- 007NEWPORT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.65σ
- 008GLACIER PEAK HIGH SCHOOLSNOHOMISH SCHOOL DISTRICT · SNOHOMISH+2.39σ
- 009CAMAS HIGH SCHOOLCAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK+2.31σ
- 010ISSAQUAH HIGH SCHOOLISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.30σ
- 011INTERLAKE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.29σ
- 012LIBERTY SR HIGH SCHOOLISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.24σ
- 013WOODINVILLE HSNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.23σ
- 014LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING+2.22σ
- 015UNION HIGH SCHOOLEVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT (CLARK) · CLARK+2.17σ
- 016CURTIS SENIOR HIGHUNIVERSITY PLACE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE+2.16σ
- 017REDMOND HIGH SCHOOLLAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.13σ
- 018INGLEMOOR HSNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+2.11σ
- 019W F WEST HIGH SCHOOLCHEHALIS SCHOOL DISTRICT · LEWIS+2.09σ
- 020HANFORD HIGH SCHOOLRICHLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT · BENTON+2.08σ
- 021OLYMPIA HIGH SCHOOLOLYMPIA SCHOOL DISTRICT · THURSTON+2.03σ
- 022WALLA WALLA HIGH SCHOOLWALLA WALLA PUBLIC SCHOOLS · WALLA WALLA+2.00σ
- 023BELLEVUE HIGH SCHOOLBELLEVUE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.98σ
- 024PULLMAN HIGH SCHOOLPULLMAN SCHOOL DISTRICT · WHITMAN+1.92σ
- 025CEDARCREST HIGH SCHOOLRIVERVIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING+1.91σ
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