rankings

By Joyce Szuflita
I hate numbers.
I just read a article in Patch about Niche's ranking of NYC Private HS. They did very well nationally and you will all be curious to read how each school did on this very narrow and subjective list. First, congratulations to them! (my tone is sincere). My quibble is not public vs. private or even which schools are the best- it is Patch's quote, "NY City is a dry, dry desert for prestigious public schools".
Here is my comment to Patch:

It is always super fun to read these rankings but seriously, all rankings need to be taken with a grain of salt, because you can't distill school quality or your own fit or success to a number or ranking; not from Niche or US News & World Report. No question that these schools are very fine institutions, but in looking at the criteria that Niche is using - 65% of the score is self reported (including test scores, colleges that the kids want to go to plus the ones that they attend and the families overall experience). What else are they going to go by? but still, they are getting data from the 'boosters'.

I take exception to your quote, "NY City is a dry, dry desert for prestigious public schools". Seriously, did you look at the list? 4 of the top 25 are in NYC. Only 1 of the top 25 private schools is in NYC. I stopped counting there, because I was mad at you for being so sloppy. Why did you even have to mention public schools in this article? Ranking public schools is also a fool's errand, but at least only 10% of that ranking is self reported.

Now if you continue to count, you will see that only 9 of the top 100 public high schools are in NYC, and 47 of the top 100 private schools are here. Does Patch have a point? I don't think that 9 schools nationally makes a 'dry, dry desert' but they also left some other numbers out. The total number of private high schools nationwide and the total number public high schools. My guess is that the total number of public high schools is WAY higher, so a comparison of 9 to 47 is apples to oranges, since there is a very large concentration of private schools in NYC that I guess far outstrips the numbers in any other city in the country (and most of the suburbs) while there are gobs of public schools in every hamlet. 'Gobs' - I am not a statistician or a writer. I think that a poverty index would also be appropriate in comparing private and public, since the number of poor kids in NYC would way outnumber that number in many of the affluent suburbs where many of the other nationally ranked public schools are housed.

Just saying, numbers lie.