Fairfax County High Schools: The Ultimate Ranking ©

Choosing the right school to meet your needs can be a lot of work.  One way to start your journey is to look at school rankings, which are usually based on test results.

Fairfax County School Rankings       If you want to start your selection based on test results, there are at least three main sources of ratings where you could begin:

  • Average Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates
  • Average SAT scores
  • The Washington Post’s The Challenge Index®

Each of these test scoring systems rank high schools in their own particular way, which makes it difficult to figure out which are THE best schools.

To make it easier for you to choose a school, we have compiled the above scores, plus a few more indicators (such as enrollment) on a single table.

We assigned points to each of the above 3 rankings and came up with The Ultimate Fairfax County High Schools Ranking ©

The Ultimate Fairfax County High Schools Ranking ©

You can see the results of The Ultimate Fairfax County High Schools Ranking © , plus the scores that comprise it in the following table:

This content is for members only.

What is it like to live in a particular High School boundary?

If you have narrowed down your school choices, click on a high school on the table above to see, per boundary:

  • elementary and middle school scores
  • average, high and low housing prices
  • available shopping, transportation, and other amenities

If you want to see where each boundary is in relation to the Washington D.C. area, click on Fairfax County school district, for a map of the entire area covered by Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS):

Click for the Fairfax County Map of School Boundaries

Fairfax County Map with high school boundaries
Click to access the Fairfax County Map (with UP-TO-DATE high school boundaries)

Access the Fairfax County Map of School Boundaries (a.k.a the Affordability Map) to see the location of each of the most UP-TO-DATE boundaries within Fairfax County and to choose your ideal boundary.

When you access the Fairfax County Map of School Boundaries, you will find:

  • UP-TO-DATE School boundaries
  • School scores for elementary, middle and high schools in each boundary
  • Photos and videos
  • Highlights of the area covered by each boundary
  • Transportation options
  • Statistics about housing

You may also want to see the Rankings for ALL the public schools in Fairfax County

The Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) tests are one way to compare schools

Fairfax County Public Schools Ranking using SOL rates

See a comprehensive table with the Rankings for ALL 207 Fairfax County Public Schools (Elementary, Middle and High) (using SOL pass rates)

If you haven’t subscribed yet, why wait?

The No-Tears Guide to Moving to Fairfax, VA
The FREE No-Tears Guide to Moving to Fairfax, VA

Downloading The No-Tears Guide to Moving to Fairfax, VA is free, and you’ll get access to The Ultimate Fairfax County School Ranking ©, along with our unique home-search (by UP-TO-DATE school boundary).

Plus, you get the Fairfax County Real Estate Affordability Map, AND access to detailed information about each Fairfax County School boundary.

Questions? Contact Us

Contact us at (703) 480-6575 or via email at: [email protected] with any questions. We are glad to help!

 

Notes and additional School Ranking Resources

* The Challenge Index®, created by Jay Matthews of The Washington Post, rates schools based on the number of students who take Advanced Placement (AP) & International Baccalaureate (IB) tests at a school, and divides that number over the overall number of graduating seniors.
The Equity & Excellence percentage (E&E %) is the percentage of AP & IB tests passed by students per school.  To learn more about AP & IB courses and tests, read Fairfax County High School Rankings: IB vs AP

** Enrollment is the number of students at the school, at the end of the 2011-2012 school year.

*** GreatSchools.org is a popular website which rates schools with a proprietary algorithm based on Standards of Learning (SOL) tests. Are you only researching on GreatSchools when choosing a school? (We did NOT consider GreatSchool’s rating in our Ultimate Ranking ©.)

**** The US News Best High Schools ranking considers AP and IB scores, as well as SOL scores in their ranking. We did not include the US News ranking in our Ultimate Ranking © , since we would be counting certain scores twice (and skewing the results). 

+ Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) is a Governor’s magnet school with a selective admissions process. The year 2010 was the last year that The Challenge Index® chose to include it in the index. From 2011, and beyond, they have decided to exclude it from the index as TJHSST does not represent the makeup of a neighborhood school.

++ H.B. Woodlawn is an education program housed in a common building. The test scores of students who attend this program are counted under each of their corresponding neighborhood schools.

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