Commack Drops in Newsweek Rankings

Commack High School scored a place on Newsweek’s top 5,000 U.S. high school rankings, however, it dipped significantly from last year’s place on the chart.  

In 2012, Commack High School was ranked No. 267 in the country by the magazine. This year, it came in at No. 355. It is also ranked sixth in Suffolk County, behind Half Hollow Hills High School East and West, Elwood, Cold Spring Harbor and Greenlawn.   According to Newsweek, Commack High School has a graduation rate of 99 percent, a 97 percent college attendance rate, an average SAT score of 1622, an average ACT score of 25 and an average advanced placement testing score of 3.9.

For its rankings, Newsweek sent out a survey to more than 5,000 high schools in the United States, with about 2,500 schools responding in 2013. You can see the details about Smithtown's ranking, and every other ranked high school by clicking on the markers in this interactive map.

The survey scores were then weighted and calculated using several criteria including on-time graduation and college acceptance rates. In addition, instead of averaging the number of courses offered, this year Newsweek considered the percentage of students enrolled in AP, IB or Advance International Certificate courses. The final scores then determined Newsweek’s final rankings (read more about Newsweek's methodology here).   The Newsweek rankings, which were released May 6, come just weeks after the U.S. News and World Report high school rankings, in which Commack High School received a Gold Medal, but also significantly dropped in rank from last year’s slot.

In 2012, the school was ranked No. 18 in New York State by U.S. News and World Report. The rankings published last month, marked Commack at No. 60 out of 1,149 high schools in the state. Last year, Commack High School was ranked No. 1 in Suffolk County. This year, it fell slightly to No. 3 behind Cold Spring Harbor (No. 1) and Harborfields (No. 2).   

When asked why Commack High School had taken such a severe dive in the rankings, Superintendent Donald James said that the U.S. News rankings places much of the rankings weight on IB scores. Since students have more options to take other advanced classes at Commack High School, many students are opting not to take the other options instead of the IB classes. While James said that he is proud of Commack High School’s Gold Medal, doing what’s best for students, including offering advanced classes other than IB, is more important to him than the rankings numbers.