Just in time for the start of the school year, Newsweek released its annual list Wednesday of the top public high schools in America for 2015.

New Trier High School in Winnetka led all local schools with a No. 14 rank nationally, the third highest rated school in Illinois. Walter Payton College Preparatory in Chicago was the only Illinois school to crack the top 10. The rankings were compiled using several metrics, including graduation rate, college enrollment rate, SAT and ACT scores, AP and IB scores and participation, teacher-student ratio and dropout rates.

"Some factors are more important, especially since our rankings focus on college readiness," Jim Impoco, editor in chief of Newsweek, told Patch via email. "We place emphasis on criteria like college enrollment and graduation rate since we know that those are some of the biggest indicators of whether students are prepared for college." See the full rankings here.

Here were the top 10 high schools in the United States, according to Newsweek: Thomas Jefferson High (Alexandria, VA) High Technology High School (Lincroft, NJ) Academy for Mathematics Science and Engineering (Rockaway, NJ) Union County Magnet High School (Scotch Plains, NJ) Bergen County Academies (Hackensack, NJ) Gretchen Whitney High (Cerritos, CA) Middlesex County Academy for Math Science & Engineering (Edison, NJ) International Academy (Bloomfield Hills, MI) Academy of Allied Health and Science (Neptune, NJ) Walter Payton College Preparatory HS (Chicago, IL) This year's rankings were weighted by: