Newsweek has named nine public high schools in Allegheny County as among the top 6 percent of high schools nationwide.

The annual list of schools, with their rank, includes Upper St. Clair, 905; Quaker Valley, 994; Pine-Richland, 1,020; Hampton, 1,183; North Hills, 1,331; Pittsburgh Allderdice, 1,538; South Fayette, 1,543; North Allegheny, 1,556; and Mt. Lebanon, 1,564.

The list also includes Blackhawk in Beaver County, with a rank of 857.

The rankings are based on a "challenge index" which takes the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests given at a school in a school year and divides that by the number of seniors graduating in May or June. Schools with a ratio of at least 1.0 -- which means they had at least as many tests as graduates -- are included on the list. The full list, which includes about 1,600 schools, is based on 2009 data.

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