Sacramento, CA – Today, as part of its partnership with STEM.org to rank America’s Best STEM High Schools, Newsweek released its ranking of the top 5,000 STEM high schools for 2019. Sacramento Country Day School ranked 680. With approximately 37,000 high schools in the U.S., this puts Country Day within the top 2% of high schools in the nation. Earlier this year, Country Day also was named the #1 Best High School for STEM in Sacramento by Niche.com.

The STEM.org list honoring excellence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics includes schools in every region of the country that offer skilled teachers who keep up with developments in these fields and who create dynamic learning environments to engage their students. The top 5,000 schools were curated from STEM.org Educational Research™ (SER) using a proprietary scoring logic that took into consideration a broad set of quantitative and qualitative data inputs collected from Q2 2015–Q3 2019. To read more about STEM.org, or the scoring process, please visit www.STEM.org.

“Country Day is very proud to be recognized as a top STEM high school. Our local and national rankings reflect the progress we’ve made over the past few years in enhancing our STEM programs for students of all ages – starting in pre-kindergarten all the way through grade twelve. In our high school, specifically, our advanced topics curriculum and laboratory research internship partnership with Sac State serve as our two ‘signature programs’ aimed at giving our students a competitive edge in STEM fields,” says Head of School Lee Thomsen.

About Country Day High School’s signature STEM offerings:

• Advanced Topics in Applied Science: Offered for the first time this fall, this hands-on course is designed for students who wish to study more in-depth concepts found in Physics, Earth Science, Chemistry, Biology, and Scientific Inquiry and Discovery. The course also fulfills the University of California’s Laboratory Science (D) requirement with an honors GPA designation.

• Advanced Topics in Applied Computer Science: This course, which will be offered in the future, is a specialized study within an area of Computer Science where students will have the opportunity to participate in a work placement program, giving them hands-on experience in the Technology Industry. 

• Laboratory Research Internships: In partnership with California State University, Sacramento, Country Day high school students are selected for research internships in the fields of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Physiology, or Child Development. Students work side-by-side with Dr. Robin Altman, Dr. Michael Wright, Dr. Johannes Bauer, Dr. Sam Curtis, and Dr. Kimberly Biddle. Country Day is working to significantly expand this program for future years.

Other advanced high school STEM offerings include:

• AP Physics C
• AP Calculus BC
• AP Computer Science A
• AP Computer Science Principles
• Digital Maker Lab

For a comprehensive list of Country Day’s high school STEM offerings, please see our High School Curriculum Guide.

###