Highcrest Middle School vs Wilmette Junior High School

Highcrest Middle School and Wilmette Junior High School sit 0.4 miles apart in Wilmette, Illinois, yet carry a measurable rating gap. Highcrest earns a 9.6/10 overall versus Wilmette Junior High's 9.0/10 — a 0.6-point difference — and that gap extends to state ranking: Highcrest sits at #23 of 3,813 Illinois schools while Wilmette Junior High ranks #101 of the same pool. Both schools perform well above state norms, but Highcrest consistently edges ahead across every scored dimension.

Academically, Highcrest Middle School scores 9.8/10 against Wilmette Junior High School's 9.5/10 — a modest 0.3-point difference that nonetheless represents a consistent lead. The growth gap is wider: Highcrest scores 9.3/10 on student growth versus Wilmette Junior High's 8.2/10, a 1.1-point delta. Growth scores measure how much students improve relative to peers with similar starting points, so this gap suggests Highcrest is pushing students further regardless of where they begin — a signal worth weighing for families with kids who need to close ground or accelerate.

Enrollment at the two schools is nearly identical — Highcrest at 747 students, Wilmette Junior High at 770 — but their student-teacher ratios diverge: Highcrest runs 10.7 students per teacher compared to 12.2 at Wilmette Junior High. That 1.5-student difference per class means more individualized attention at Highcrest, which may partly explain its stronger growth numbers.

The most structural distinction between the two schools is grade configuration. Highcrest Middle School serves grades 5 and 6, while Wilmette Junior High School serves grades 7 and 8. These are not competing schools in the traditional sense — they are sequential stops in the same progression. A student in Wilmette's public schools would typically attend Highcrest first, then move on to Wilmette Junior High. Parents are not choosing between them so much as evaluating what their child can expect at each stage of the middle school years.