<p>I don’t think there’s any question that, head-to-head, a student from a strong school has an advantage over a student from a non-strong school. But what’s key is the admissions staff’s assessment of school strength. That’s something they actually know quite a lot about, since they are looking at multiple candidates from many schools year after year, and also have the ability to track what happens to kids after they enroll. So it’s completely unlikely that any selective colleges care at all what USNWR or Newsweek think about high schools. (The WSJ rankings, on the other hand, essentially measure what admissions staffs think about high schools, or at least they would if they averaged multiple years.)</p>