All three Fort Mill School District high schools placed among the top 20 in South Carolina in the U.S. News and World Report Best High Schools rankings released Tuesday, with Fort Mill High School rising to No. 8 statewide.
Nation Ford High School ranked No. 12 in South Carolina and Catawba Ridge High School ranked No. 18. Nationally, Fort Mill High placed 1,006th, Nation Ford 1,368th and Catawba Ridge 1,768th out of nearly 18,000 ranked public high schools, putting all three inside roughly the top 10 percent in the country.
The rankings carry weight in a town where school quality drives home sales and where the district has spent a decade absorbing some of the fastest enrollment growth in South Carolina. All three campuses sit within a few miles of one another in the same district, listed by U.S. News under its state designation, York 04.
How the three schools compared
Fort Mill High reported the strongest numbers of the three. Its graduation rate was 98 percent and its college readiness index score was 50.2, the highest in the district. Enrollment in grades 9 through 12 was 2,115.
Nation Ford, on A.O. Jones Boulevard, posted a 94 percent graduation rate and a college readiness score of 40.9 with 1,921 students. Catawba Ridge reported a 95 percent graduation rate, a college readiness score of 40.6 and 1,704 students.
U.S. News calculates the college readiness index from how many students take Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams and how many pass them. It is the heaviest single factor in the formula.
A shuffle from last year
The order of the three schools flipped from the previous edition. A year ago, Catawba Ridge ranked ninth in South Carolina, Nation Ford 10th and Fort Mill High 11th. Fort Mill High moved up three spots this time, while Nation Ford slipped two and Catawba Ridge fell nine.
Comparisons across editions come with a caveat. U.S. News evaluated around 27,000 public high schools this year, up from roughly 24,000 last year, so the pool a school is measured against changed. Aiken Scholars Academy ranked first in South Carolina.
What U.S. News measured
The company said it scored schools on six indicators, including student performance on state required assessments, graduation rates, how well schools serve underserved students, the breadth of college level coursework offered and results on AP and IB exams. U.S. News worked with the research firm RTI International on the methodology and used data from the 2023 and 2024 academic year, meaning the results reflect a graduating class that has already left the building.
“Every student deserves a pathway to success, and that journey often begins with selecting the right school,” LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News, said in the announcement.
The rankings drew exclusively on data from the College Board, the International Baccalaureate organization and state education agencies. No surveys, reputation scores or parent reviews factored in.
Massachusetts again led the country, with 47 percent of its high schools placing in the top quarter nationally, followed by New Jersey at 44 percent and Maryland at 43 percent.
Fort Mill School District has cited the U.S. News rankings in its published list of accolades in past years, noting that its three high schools were the top three in York County. The district has not yet issued a statement on this year’s results.
The full South Carolina list and individual school profiles are posted at usnews.com.
Source line: Reporting based on the U.S. News and World Report 2026 and 2027 Best High Schools rankings, individual school profile pages for Fort Mill High School, Nation Ford High School and Catawba Ridge High School, and the U.S. News announcement distributed Aug. 18, 2026.
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Thomas Hyslip lives in Tega Cay with his wife and daughter. After 27 years in the U.S. Army and Federal Law Enforcement, he retired to pursue his passion for teaching. Tom is now an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of South Florida. In 2 short years he has won 10 awards from the South Carolina Press Association, including first place in column writing, education beat reporting and best podcast.
