Monta Vista Listed Within Top 100 High Schools in the U.S.

Monta Vista High School in Cupertino snagged the 97th spot in U.S. News and World Report’s list of the top 500 high schools in the U.S.

Released Tuesday, the 2012 list also ranks it as 16th place within California high schools. Nearly one-fifth of the top 500 schools are in the Golden State.

U.S. News partnered with the Washington D.C.-based Institutes for Research to compile data on 22,000 public high schools in the U.S. in its rankings.

To determine the national rankings of the schools, they looked at how well students performed on state assessments, taking the test scores of disadvantaged students into account.

Then they tried to look at the college readiness of the schools by analyzing how well students do on Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs.

Monta Vista has a high Advanced Placement test participation rate, with 79 percent of students taking the yearly exams, and 92 percent passing them.