School comparison guides

Choose a region and the intended school stage or qualification. Each guide states whether its table is a published metric ranking or a directory sample. Check current eligibility, subjects, costs and support through the linked official sources before applying.

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What this hub covers

This hub is the index for VisitBest’s school comparison guides: eleven Top 100 tables, each drawn from named official or membership directories and grouped by country and school system. For India there is a directory sample of CBSE senior secondary schools in ten selected states and territories. For the United States there is a guide to 100 public high schools — two regular public high schools from each of the 50 states, taken from the NCES Common Core of Data, 2023–24, version 1a. England has two guides: 100 state-funded selective grammar schools, and 100 open, state-funded, non-selective secondary schools spread across England’s nine regions.

Canada also has two guides: 100 private schools, made up of 97 schools from the Canadian Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) directory plus three Ontario private-school records, and 100 high schools, combining 60 CAIS secondary-school records with 40 Ontario public secondary schools — the public-school coverage in that guide is Ontario only. Australia’s guide samples 100 secondary schools across three states only: 34 New South Wales government records, 33 Victorian records and 33 Queensland non-state records. The remaining four guides cross borders: international schools in Asia sampled from the Cambridge International directory in seven countries, international schools worldwide from the same directory across 15 countries, boarding schools across eight countries, and private schools across three systems — 35 English independent, 35 Canadian CAIS and 30 Victorian non-government records.

The photograph above shows the main building of St Joseph’s Nudgee College at Boondall in Brisbane, Queensland — one of the Queensland non-state records in the Australia guide linked from this page. It appears as a photograph of a school inside the sample, not as an endorsement: appearing in one of these tables is not a quality judgement, and a school’s absence from a table says nothing about it either, because every table is a sample built under a stated filter, not a census of a country’s schools.

Directory sample or ranking? Read the label

On this hub the answer is the same for all eleven guides, and each card above states it in its own words: every table here is a directory sample, not a published ranking, a league table or a VisitBest ordering of quality. The CBSE sample carries no board-results rank; the United States guide states that its row numbers are not ranks; the England grammar guide is not a UK-wide examination-results ranking, and the non-selective England guide is a directory selection, not a results league table; the Canada private guide is not a government-endorsed national ranking; the Australia guide applies no performance ranking; and the boarding, international and three-country private guides each describe themselves as samples whose list numbers are not ranks.

Read each sample through its own filter, because the directories define their records differently. The CBSE table is a board directory extract for ten selected states and territories; the United States table is a geographic sample — two schools per state — from a federal directory; the England tables rest on official school records, split by whether the school is selective; the Canada tables combine a membership directory with Ontario school records; the Australia table combines three state sources with different mixes of government and non-state schools; the international tables include only schools whose names contain “International” and “School” in one awarding body’s directory, with a listed website; and the boarding table combines a boarding-school association directory with England’s official records. Membership, official registration, a directory listing and academic performance are different kinds of evidence, and no table on this hub merges them into a quality score.

A record in one of these tables therefore confirms only that the school existed and met the stated filter when the source records were checked. It does not confirm that the school is better than a school outside the sample, that a child is eligible for it, that a place is available, or what the school charges. Those answers come from the school and its admissions authority — which is what the checks below are for.

Before you apply: five checks

1. Start from the hub for the country you are considering — India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, international schools in Asia or the cross-country guides — and read that guide’s source, edition and geographic limits before its table, because each system runs its own admissions: who operates the school (a government or state authority, an academy trust, a religious body or an independent board) decides who sets the entry rules, and a route that works in one country or state does not transfer to another.
2. Confirm eligibility for the exact school and year group before relying on any date: catchment and local-authority rules, selective entrance tests, board affiliation, residency requirements and the year-group names used in that system can each decide whether an application is possible at all, and a directory listing never confirms a place. Ask the school or its admissions authority to confirm eligibility, and keep that confirmation with the application.
3. Save the current evidence rather than relying on a guide’s summary: download the school’s current admission arrangements, the qualification and subjects it actually offers at the campus you are applying to, and its current fee schedule where fees apply, each with the date you obtained it. These guides record the position when their source records were checked; the documents, identity and residency evidence and supporting information are the applicant’s to assemble, and anything a guide cannot answer should be marked unresolved rather than estimated.
4. Take costs and timing only from official sources: some schools in these samples are state-funded and charge no tuition, while independent, boarding and international schools can charge substantial fees, and neither position can be inferred from a school’s presence in a table. Use the school’s own current fee schedule — including deposits, uniforms, devices, activities, examinations and transport, and boarding where it applies, in the currency quoted — and take application windows and deadlines from the school’s or the admissions authority’s current notices, never from a directory sample.
5. Check the practical fit at the actual campus before committing: the year group the child would enter after a move between systems, the subjects, language of instruction and support available at that campus, the daily journey or, where the boarding guide is the relevant one, the residential arrangement actually on offer, and a named contact for questions. Resolve missing answers with the actual campus, as the shortlist steps below recommend, instead of filling gaps from a neighbouring school or another country’s rules.

For the rest of the education section — the university and medical-college comparison hubs — start from the Education Guides Hub, the parent hub of this page.

How to use the comparisons

1. Read the source, edition and geographic limits.
2. Shortlist feasible programmes or year groups.
3. Save current admission, qualification and fee evidence.
4. Resolve missing answers with the actual campus.

A directory listing, membership record and academic performance measure answer different questions. They are labelled separately throughout these guides.