SLP Ranked Third Most Challenging School in Minnesota

St. Louis Park High School dropped down a couple of notches in the Washington Post’s list of the most-challenging high schools, but it is still near the top of Minnesota high schools, according to rankings released last week.

The Washington Post’s High School Challenge ranked St. Louis Park third in the state, behind only Minneapolis Southwest, for how it prepares students for college. Nationally, the school was ranked 181 out of 1,900 schools that made the list.

Last year, it was first in the state.

Only 9 percent of the country’s approximately 22,000 schools made the list, including 27 in Minnesota.

To grade the schools, the Washington Post divided the number of college preparation tests that students took by the number of graduating seniors. Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education tests were all tallied. Schools with a score above 1.0 made the list.

St. Louis Park scored 4.355.

Schools in nearby districts that made the list were:

• St. Louis Park, second in the state with a score of 4.355
• Edina, third with a score of 3.764
• Eden Prairie, ninth with a score of 2.569
• Robbinsdale Armstrong, 10th with a score of 2.556
• Wayzata, 16th with a score of 1.905
• Hopkins, 22nd with a score of 1.375
• Robbinsdale Cooper, 27th with a score of 1.013

The list excludes magnets and charter schools that have average SAT or ACT scores greater than the highest average for normal enrollment schools—which translates to 2000 for the SAT or 29.3 for the ACT.

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