Gunn ranked 117 on Newsweek’s list of top high schools nationwide this year, a 34-rank drop from last year’s ranking of 83. The U.S. News and World Report’s 2009 Best High Schools list also dropped Gunn’s ranking from 66 to 74, but still considers it a “gold medal school.” To be considered a gold medal school, the school has to have a large percent of the students from the graduating class take AP tests.

Statewide, Gunn was able to maintain its ranking on the Academic Performance Index (API), which summarizes a school’s academic excellence and progress through statewide tests. A school is ranked from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) based on its API score. This year, Gunn received a 10 for its performance from 2008 to 2009.

According to Assistant Principal of Facilities Tom Jacoubowsky, however, the administration does not place much emphasis on these rankings. “As a school, we generally don’t involve ourselves or get too caught up in these rankings like some schools do,” he said. “We already know that we are very fortunate and that we have a fantastic student body. For us, it’s just not something that we want to rate the quality of the school by.”

Newsweek’s list of top high schools, called the Challenge Index, is based on the number of Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate and Cambridge tests taken divided by the number of graduating seniors. According to Jacoubowsky, the Challenge Index has repeatedly been called inaccurate by many school administrators across the country.

“The system that they’ve set up for ranking schools has nothing to do with how well students perform on their AP exams,” he said. “There are many schools that make all of their students sign up for the AP exams just so they can boost their nationwide ranking. It’s not a good determinant of how prestigious a school is.”

According to Assistant Principal of Guidance Kimberly Cowell, the statewide API report is a more accurate evaluation of a school’s academic excellence. It is a single-number indicator of a school’s performance, based on the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program and California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) results. “When it comes to the STAR test and the CAHSEE, we, as a school, know that we actually earned those rankings due to the academic achievements across three grade levels, whereas in the Challenge Index, our school ranking is based on the number of seniors in the graduating class and how many students took AP exams,” Cowell said.

In 2007, Gunn did not participate in the Challenge Index because the administration believed that the ranking system was unfair. According to Jacoubowsky, the school also withdrew from the ranking system in an attempt to alleviate stress. “We didn’t want to put any more pressure on our students than they already had just so that they can achieve a certain ranking for the school,” Jacoubowsky said. “That’s the whole point of our not having a valedictorian. We don’t want people to sign up for more classes that they can handle just to get a higher grade point average. The same concept applies to these rankings.”

However, Gunn rejoined the Challenge Index system a year later upon the request of Superintendent Kevin Skelly.

According to Jacoubowsky, Gunn’s ranking on the Newsweek list will probably continue to decrease due to the growing presence of small charter schools.

“Many smaller boutique schools are opening up that have graduating classes of only 20 or 30 kids,” he said. “Yes, they’re public, but public is only a name. Most of them are exclusive in some form. Either way in some shape or form, these places know how to manipulate the system so that they end up on top.” Jacoubowsky believes that if all the smaller schools were to be excluded, Gunn would rank around 25 among all the full-size high schools with more than 1,000 students.

The API and the Challenge Index do not incorporate extracurricular activities and student support programs. These factors, Cowell said, are essential to a complete high school experience. “The fact is that Newsweek and even API reports use very narrow formulas to measure the general excellence of a school,” Cowell said. “I certainly believe that they could be indicators of academic rigor and how much a school pushes its students, but they don’t show anything about the kind of extra curricular activities that a school offers like athletics, clubs and arts. There are so many different factors as to why a high school is really a wonderful place.”

Overall, the administration is content with the direction of the school. “We don’t take these rankings to heart because we see them as artificial barometers of how to measure a school,” Jacoubowsky said. “The truth is that we’re very happy with where we are. We know that we do a good job and we know that we have great students.”