Highest Graduation Rate High Schools

The four-year adjusted-cohort graduation rate (ACGR) is the only graduation metric collected uniformly across U.S. public high schools. It comes from EDFacts, the federal collection of state-reported school data, and is structured by NCES. Researchers wanting bulk access to the same numbers can use the Urban Institute Education Data API.

The 100 schools below post the highest ACGRs in this site\'s data, drawn from 29 states. The tenth-place school graduates 94% of its cohort, and the median across the top 100 is roughly 93%. Because EDFacts reports ACGR at the district level, every high school in the same district carries that district\'s rate as a uniform descriptor.

This page sorts high schools by the EDFacts Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR), the share of first-time 9th-graders who earn a regular diploma within four years (with adjustments for transfers and deaths). EDFacts publishes ACGR at the district level; we apply that rate to all high schools in the district. State-by-state graduation rates are not perfectly comparable because each state sets its own diploma requirements.

ACGR is the federal standard for graduation reporting under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind in 2015. Before 2008 there was no uniform formula — states used varying definitions, and rates were not comparable. ACGR fixed that by defining a single cohort-tracking method that every state must use to receive Title I funds.

High graduation rates are a real signal — they mean the district is shepherding most students who start 9th grade through to a regular diploma in four years. But they don\'t tell you everything. A high ACGR can come from rigorous instruction, supportive counseling, and strong family engagement; it can also come from credit-recovery programs that lower the bar, summer school graduation pathways, and districts that quietly transfer struggling students out before the cohort calendar closes.

Pair the graduation rate with the proficiency rate column. Schools posting both 95%+ ACGR and 80%+ proficiency are doing the harder job: graduating most of the cohort while also teaching at grade level. Schools posting 95%+ ACGR but low proficiency may be passing students through without the academic foundation a diploma is supposed to certify.

A few honest caveats: EDFacts proficiency and graduation rates are reported at the district level, not the individual school. We apply the district number to every school in that district so that the comparison is at least consistent — but a strong school inside a struggling district will look worse than it is, and vice versa. NCES publishes the most recent year of CCD data with about a one-year lag. Privacy suppression hides results for very small subgroups, which appears as missing data rather than zero.

We filter to NCES High-classified schools with a published EDFacts ACGR, sort descending by graduation rate, and keep the top 100. We do not adjust the federal numbers. ACGR is joined at the district level. Read the full methodology page for the complete data lineage and refresh cadence.