When Newsweek magazine released its annual poll of the best public high schools in the country last week, a couple of usual suspects was conspicuously absent.
No Howard County school made the list, though both Centennial and River Hill have been on it regularly in years past.
But if some parents and observers were surprised, school officials were not.
The magazine's ranking is based on information provided by the schools, and this year, the Howard County Public School System chose not to participate, said Patti Caplan, director of public relations for the schools.
That decision was made following a change in the list, and how it was compiled.
"We elected not to participate, because we needed some clarification on the formula they're now using," Caplan said. "The timing on it was rushed, as well."
In the past, the list included as many as 1,600 high schools, and was compiled by The Washington Post. This is the first year Newsweek has compiled its own list, following the magazine's split from the Post in 2010. With the shift, the methodology of ranking the high schools shifted as well.
According to Newsweek's website, the rankings were previously based on how well students did on advanced-placement, college-level courses and tests.
Now, however, the rankings are more comprehensive, taking into consideration on-time graduation rate, the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Advanced International Certificate of Education tests taken per graduate, average SAT and ACT scores, and more
Compiling that information for rankings takes tremendous effort on the part of central office staff, Caplan said. Requests for such polls must go through the central office as opposed to the individual schools, Caplan said, so the system can provide the most consistent information.
Caplan said the school system receives numerous requests from organizations wanting to rank high schools nationally. It hasn't been determined yet if the school system will participate in next year's Newsweek poll.
"Since we're not using that formula, we don't know how we would rank," Caplan said. "But we generally come up pretty high on the list now matter how they slice the bread."
According to Newsweek's website, the organization has been ranking the best high schools in the country since 1998. Newsweek reached out to more than 10,000 public high schools in the country for its list of 500.
While figures from before 2006 were not available, both Centennial and River Hill high schools have made Newsweek's list nearly every year since then.
Since 2006, Centennial has been ranked in the top 300 every year, peaking in 2007 with a rank of 151. River Hill had also ranked in the top 300 over the past years. While the school did not make the cut in 2007, its highest rank was 159 in 2010.
Several Howard high schools were included in the Post's annual list, however. River Hill, Centennial, Mt. Hebron, Marriotts Ridge, Howard, Glenelg, Atholton, Wilde Lake and Long Reach high schools were all named among the best high schools in the country for 2011 in that poll.