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The Washington Post Challenge Index measures a public high school's effort to challenge its students. The formula is simple: Divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests a school gave by the number of graduating seniors. Tests taken by all students, not just seniors, are counted.

The rating is not a measure of the overall quality of the school but illuminates one factor that many educators consider important and that can favorably affect other factors.

When compared with schools across the country, Washington area schools are the most encouraging overall of college-level testing. In the list below, any school with a rating of 1.000 or above is in the top six percent of all U.S. high schools in encouraging students to take AP, IB or Cambridge tests. Also listed are the name of the school district and the percentage of a school's students whose family incomes are low enough to qualify for federally subsidized lunches and who also apply for that program. The portion of subsidized-lunch applicants is a rough indicator of a school's poverty level. High poverty schools are at disadvantage in persuading students to take college-level courses, but some on this list have succeeded in doing so.

After each school's name is its Equity and Excellence rate, the percentage of all seniors who have had at least one score on an AP, IB or Cambridge test that would qualify them for college credit. The average Equity and Excellence rate for all U.S. schools is about 15 percent.

*Includes IB tests.
**Includes Cambridge, community college or other types of college-level final exams.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, with a rating of 7.575 and an Equity and Excellence rate of 100 percent, was not ranked because it is a magnet school with a selective admissions police and an average SAT score, 2214, higher than the highest average for any regular enrollment school in the country. The index is designed to show which schools are challenging average students and does not work well with schools such as Jefferson that have few or no average students.

Briar Woods and Freedom in Loudoun County, Clarksburg and Northwood in Montgomery County, Dr. Henry A. Wise in Prince George's County and North Point in Charles County were not included because they are new schools and did not have full senior classes graduating this year.