To compile Hartford Magazine’s Best High Schools list we went straight to college admissions officials who are most familiar with the high schools in Greater Hartford. Those listed are simply the ones mentioned most frequently. We purposely avoided ranking the schools against one another. Instead, we chose to list them alphabetically. To get admissions officers to speak frankly, we also agreed that we would not attribute admissions officials’ names with the schools on their lists.

The list of colleges surveyed was developed by contacting officials at colleges and universities in and around Hartford and Connecticut. Not all of them, such as the University of Connecticut and Central Connecticut State University, agreed to participate. We also reached out to colleges in the rest of New England. Still unsatisfied that we had a satisfactory sample, we asked high school guidance counselors and independent college counselors, who help high school students get into colleges, for the names of other college admissions officers who visit, and therefore are familiar with, high schools in Greater Hartford. These are the colleges and universities we surveyed

To come up with the statistical information that accompanies the listings, Hartford Magazine intern Cecily McAndrews started with the state Department of Education web site (www.state.ct.us/sde/), a repository of information about public schools. She drew on the latest information available. Enrollments, AP courses, SAT scores, graduation rates, percentage of classes going to college, spending per pupil and average class sizes are from the department’s school and district profiles (http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/index.htm) or from school officials. School officials also provided student-to-guidance counselor ratios and the samplings of colleges the class of ’05 will be attending. For the private schools, the data was collected from school websites and school officials.

In some cases, the percentage of students going to college is higher than the graduation rate, which might seem counterintuitive. Graduation rates were calculated as the inverse of the dropout rate. Example, 100 pupils were in the class as freshman, 20 dropped out and 80 seniors graduated, which would indicate a graduation rate of 80 percent. Of those 80 graduates, 78 went to college, meaning 97.5 percent of the graduating class went to college.

SAT data varies among the schools because of differences in how and when they report it. The state education department collects data from all public schools, and the latest data available was for the class of 2003. Private and parochial schools are not required to report SAT scores to the state, and the scores listed here were obtained from the schools. It should be noted that beginning with the class of ’06 the SAT changed to a 2400-point grading scale. The scores reported here are based on the old 1600-point scale.

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