U.S. News & World Report recently awarded a bronze medal to Waterville Senior High School in its annual America's Best High Schools report. The report identified the country's top-performing high schools after analyzing over 21,000 public high schools across the nation.

"I'm thrilled that we've been named by U.S. News and World Report. It's a reflection of the hard work and dedication of our teachers and the student body," Waterville Senior High School Principal Don Reiter said.

High schools across the country are selected for gold, silver or bronze medals or honorable mention categories based on a three-step process. The first step examines whether the school's students performed statistically better than the average student in the state. The statistics account for the school's relative level of student poverty and are based on the school's achievement on the state reading and math tests. The second step looks to see if the school's least-advantaged students (i.e. black, Hispanic and low-income) achieved proficiency rates on state tests that exceeded state averages. Finally, the third step measures the degree of college-readiness performance observed in the school. College-readiness performance is based upon student participation in and performance on Advanced Placement (AP) exams or International Baccalaureate (IB) exams.

Schools awarded gold or silver medals meet all the criteria identified in the three-step process while schools that are awarded bronze medals meet the state testing criteria, but do not display adequate levels of college-readiness. High schools that are awarded honorable mention demonstrate high levels of college-readiness, but do not fully meet performance criteria on state tests.

Waterville Senior High School was one of 10 high schools in Maine to be recognized in the U.S. News report. Of the ten high schools, one received a gold medal, four received silver medals and five received bronze medals.