Hamilton High School was named in the U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best High Schools” list for the twelfth consecutive year. Hamilton is ranked 11th among 467 Wisconsin public high schools and 640th among nearly 18,000 U.S. public high schools that made the ranking.
The ranking highlights the best public high schools in the nation after review of data to identify how well schools serve all students in preparing them in basic skills and readiness for college-level work.
“A great high school educates all of its students from different social and economic backgrounds, exposing them to challenging coursework on the path to graduation,” says Eric Brooks, principal data analyst for U.S. News. “The highest-ranked U.S. public schools in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026-2027 Best High Schools rankings are those whose students demonstrated outstanding outcomes above expectations in math, reading and science state assessments, earned qualifying scores on an array of college-level exams, and graduated in high proportions,” he adds.
Schools were ranked based on:
- college readiness — the proportion of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score on at least one Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) exam (30% of ranking);
- state assessment proficiency — the aggregated scores on state assessments that students may be required to pass for graduation (20%);
- state assessment performance — whether performance on state assessments exceeded expectations given the school’s proportion of underserved students (20%);
- underserved student performance — how Black, Hispanic and low-income students performed on state assessments compared with those who are not underserved in the state (10%);
- college curriculum breadth — the proportions of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score on AP or IB exams in multiple content areas (10%); and
- graduation rate — the proportion of students who entered ninth grade in the 2020-2021 academic year and graduated four years later (10%).