Freedom & Wharton Make List Of ‘Most Challenging’ U.S. High Schools

Congratulations to both Freedom and Wharton High Schools for making The Washington Post’s annual list of America’s Most Challenging High Schools!

According to the Post’s list, Freedom came in at 579, followed closely by Wharton at 592 of the more than 22,000 traditional, public high schools in the 50 U.S. states.

The rankings are based on the number of Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced International Certificate (AIC) tests that are given at a high school each year, divided by the number of seniors who graduate, called the “Challenge Index.” The higher the number, the higher the school’s rank.

An index score of 1.000 means that as many students who graduated from a school also took an advanced test that year, whether it was an AP, IB or AIC test. Freedom finished with an index score of 2.640 and Wharton with an index score of 2.617. — MW