PITTSBURGH, PA - Nineteen southwestern Pennsylvania high schools are rated among the best in the state, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2018 high school rankings. The highest-rated school in the area was Quaker Valley.

The 2018 best high school rankings were released on Wednesday and evaluate over 20,500 public high schools. U.S. News identified schools that best serve all students and assessed how prepared students are for college-level work. Schools are also recognized with gold, silver and bronze medals with gold indicating the greatest level of college readiness. No southwestern Pennsylvania school received a gold medal. Seventeen had silver medals and two received bronze ones. Overall, 162 public high schools in Pennsylvania made the rankings.

"Top-ranked schools succeed in three main areas: exceeding expectations on state proficiency tests, offering challenging coursework and graduating their students," Anita Narayan, managing editor of Education at U.S. News, said in a press release. Here's how the region's schools fared according to the 2018 Pennsylvania rankings:

Silver Medal Schools

10. Quaker Valley 11. Pine-Richland 13. North Allegheny 16. Upper St. Clair 20. Hampton 24. Mt. Lebanon 25. Peters 26. Obama (Pittsburgh Public Schools) 30. CAPA (Pittsburgh Public Schools) 33. Fox Chapel 56. Avonworth 57. Mars 59. Pittsburgh Sci-Tech (Pittsburgh Public Schools) 66. Moon 73. North Hills 74. Franklin-Regional 106. Gateway Bronze Medal Schools



139. Freeport 154. Butler Area To determine the rankings, U.S. News teamed up with the social science research firm RTI International. A variety of data sources, including the Common Core of Data, College Board and the International Baccalaureate, were used.

A four-step process was used to rank all eligible schools. The first two steps were to determine whether students were performing better than statistically expected in the state and whether minority students were performing at or better than the state average for minority students, which was the second step. The third step required schools to meet or surpass a certain graduation benchmark and the final step was to determine college readiness. (You can read the full methodology here.)