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Lambert named one of nations top high schools
LambertGrad 9 web

SOUTH FORSYTH — One local high school has been named to a prestigious list of the best public high schools in the country.

Lambert High School ranked 421st out of 500 on Newsweek’s “America’s Top High Schools 2015,” a list that recognizes public high schools for best preparing students for college.

Newsweek’s High School Rankings have been published for more than a decade but split into two separate lists in 2014 “in an effort to address the complexities of assessing the ‘best’ high schools when students’ socioeconomic backgrounds were taken into account.”

The list on which Lambert landed reflects the combined total of those two rankings, an “absolute list that ranks schools solely based on performance.”

A number of factors were taken into consideration, according to Newsweek. The idea was to “identify high schools that perform at or above the 70th percentile within each state.” College readiness factors taken into account included graduation rate, SAT/ACT scores, dual enrollment and student retention.

The study found that Lambert, which has the highest enrollment among high schools in the Forsyth County system, posted a college readiness rate in the 77.2 percentile, a 97.2 percent graduation rate and a 100 percent college bound rate.

The high school on Old Atlanta Road in south Forsyth also had an SAT/ACT composite score of 55.4, an average of 3.42 on AP exams and an average SAT score of 1594.

In addition, Lambert was lauded for meeting the study’s equity measure by helping students from low-income families score at or above average on state assessments.

Lambert recorded a 5.2 percent poverty rate, with other schools ranging from no recorded students living in poverty to 80.9 percent.

Six other Georgia high schools made the list, including Savannah Arts Academy (No. 272), Columbus High School (No. 311), DeKalb Schools of the Arts (No. 368), Milton High School (No. 431), Alpharetta High School (No. 486) and Chattahoochee High School (No. 499).

Lambert is at least the third Forsyth County high school to make Newsweek’s rankings over the years, joining West (in 2013) and South Forsyth (2006-12).