The buzz on Baltimore's selective top-tier public high schools has long been that those students were certainly better academically than their peers in the city's struggling neighborhood schools - but when judged against students in the suburbs, even the best city kids really didn't match up.

Now, the first set of scores from new rigorous statewide high school exams shows that city schools such as City College, Polytechnic Institute and the School for the Arts aren't just good by Baltimore standards.

They're just good. Period.

"This is something we've always known," said Polytechnic Institute Principal Ian Cohen. "Now the proof in the pudding is there."

And how sweet it is.

In recently released results from the High School Assessments, a test that measures mastery of five subject areas, Polytechnic ranked in the top 10 among 86 area schools in four subjects; City and the School for the Arts ranked in the top 15 in most areas; and Western High School, an all-girls school, was in the top 25 in three subjects.

The test, which is scored on a percentile ranking basis, could eventually become a graduation requirement.

"We always thought that schools like Poly, City and Western were superior. We never thought that any high school in Silver Spring or anywhere else would be comparable," said R. Marcus Allen, a 1991 Polytechnic graduate. "We always assumed that we were a step above even those schools in [Baltimore County]."

Polytechnic students ranked third on the test that measures government studies. School for the Arts students scored seventh on the English exam. And only Centennial High in Howard County outscored City College students in algebra.

The scores showed what administrators, students, and teachers in those schools have known for years - that doubters based their opinions on a Baltimore bias, not facts.

"I think people just ignore the data because they have an overall perception that everything in Baltimore City is bad and all youngsters in Baltimore City are unruly and dangerous," City College Principal Joseph M. Wilson said.

"I think many people just had the perception that any city school was a little inferior, but that's not true," said Allen, now a Baltimore chiropractor.

Mary E. Yakimowski, the school system's chief of educational accountability, called the district's citywide high schools "one of the best-kept secrets in the state."

"They hold their own and then some," she said.

Baltimore's citywide high schools offer some of the most demanding programs anywhere, principals said.

All Polytechnic students take high-level courses in math, engineering and science.

One-third of City College students take at least one Advanced Placement or college-level International Baccalaureate course.

Nearly all of School for the Arts students go on to college.

City and Polytechnic students take more classes a day than those in most neighborhood high schools. The school day for School for the Arts students is more than an hour longer than at other Baltimore schools.

"It's very rigorous," said School for the Arts director Leslie Shepard. "Once they come in, we hold them to very high standards, and we do everything we can do to help them get there."

Unlike School for the Arts students, who are accepted on artistic talent alone, students in most citywide high schools gain entrance through a competitive application process that's based on middle school grades and standardized test scores.

But citywide school principals say it's a myth that their student populations represent only the brightest, wealthiest - and even whitest - children the city has to offer. "We get kids that are the same as other kids all over the city," Cohen said.

"The concentration of poor students and minority students that the city schools serve ought to be taken into consideration when these schools are compared," Wilson said. "While we may be doing well on raw scores, when you factor in the challenges, the citywide schools are performing at an extraordinarily high level."

Eight percent of City's 1,350 students are white, Wilson said. And 50 percent of City College students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, a common indicator of economic need.

About 20 percent Polytechnic students are white, Cohen said.

School for the Arts students are not accepted based on standardized test scores or grades, Shepard said.

"So our good work and achievement is really just a wonderful testament of what our faculty does to prepare our students for college," she said.

But another misconception about the citywide high schools, educators said, is that they get the pick of the top administrators and teachers.

"People think we have everything," Polytechnic's Cohen said. "But we have access to the same resource pool as everyone else."

Some citywide schools, because they have a larger percentage of more well-to-do students, receive less federal and state funding to run their education programs than neighborhood high schools.

"We focus on getting the students ready for college," said Western High School Principal Landa McLaurin, "despite the resources or money."