Walnut High School has been recognized as a top school in the 2025 U.S. News & World Report’s national best high schools rankings.
Placing within the top 5 percent of the 18,000 high schools evaluated across the nation, Walnut demonstrates its commitment to fostering student success. The rankings, based on criteria such as state-required tests, graduation rates, college readiness and AP exam performance, highlight schools that excel across various metrics. With a 98 percent graduation rate, 58 percent Advanced Placement (AP) participation rate and 50 percent AP pass rate, these measures (found on the official U.S. News & World Report’s website) contribute to an overall score of 95.51 out of 100. Principal Michele Lew attributes the school’s high ranking to the collaborative efforts of the entire Walnut community.
“We couldn’t do this without the students and teachers working together,” Lew said. “Another big factor of being ranked this high is parents and the community and familial support. Our families here in Walnut care so much about our kids. It’s because of all of us having this goal in mind and going for that goal in the same collaborative way that we’re able to be ranked.”
Looking forward, Lew’s goal as a new principal is to sustain the school’s success while identifying areas for growth.
“What’s happening at Walnut is great. It’s all the good things. My goal, especially being a new principal, is to just maintain that,” Lew said. “For me personally, if we’re looking at areas to improve, I’m always looking at things for students who need a little bit more support to be as successful as most of our students.”
Teachers at Walnut also seek to further the commitment to excellence and improve.
“I’m honored and privileged that I can work with a lot of high achieving and hard-working students. [However], regardless of how high we are ranked, there’s definitely a lot more we need to improve. The high achieving students are continuously high achieving, but we also have low achieving students who are not catching up. Closing the gap is important,” math teacher Andrew Chen said.
Additionally, students feel motivated by the achievement. Being recognized on a national level reinforces the significance and importance of academic accomplishment.
“It motivates me, especially in certain classes, to do better because I know my grades will reflect on the teachers and school,” senior Sebastian Negandhi said.
This motivation goes both ways as the school’s ranking and acknowledgement is a reflection of the dedication of both students and faculty.
“It’s an amazing school to be at and having taught kids at other schools, I think our students are really amazing. They’re thoughtful, caring, focused on academics and global-citizen-minded and work really hard,” English teacher Jennifer Maletz said.”It’s nice to see that success and hard work of students and faculty be seen by others.
![CPR certified | Medical Pathway students sophomore Mina Thongsaeng (left) and Chloe Yang practice performing CPR on a practice manikin. “I wanted to [take this class] to learn how to do CPR and learn skills such as taking vitals because it’s realistic to what you have to do in an actual hospital,” Thongsaeng said.](https://whshoofprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/000B7285-DD69-4FBA-9881-A33CADC137C1-1200x800.jpeg)
