the United States Department of Education, the highest award an American school can receive. In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 61st in the nation among participating public high schools and 4th among schools in New Jersey. In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 1st in New Jersey and 52nd nationwide. 26th place in U.S. News & World Report's November 29, 2007 issue listing the Best High Schools in the United States. McNair Academic High School was also named a Gold Medal School by U.S. News & World Report for making the Top 100 list. The school was ranked 85th in Newsweek'''s 2009 ranking of the top 1,500 high schools in the United States and was the top ranked school in New Jersey, with 3.993 AP tests taken in 2008 per graduating senior and 80% of all graduating seniors passing at least one AP exam. The school was ranked 27th place in Newsweek's May 22, 2007, issue listing the Top Public High Schools in the United States; the school was ranked in 83rd place in the 2006 survey and 15th in the 2005 rankings. The title of "Star School" during the 2004–05 school year by the New Jersey Department of Education—the highest honor that a New Jersey school can achieve. For the 2005–06 school year, the school was one of 22 schools statewide selected as Governor's School of Excellence Winners, an award given to schools that have demonstrated significant improvement over the previous two academic years. The school was the 62nd-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 339 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2014 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", using a new ranking methodology. The school had been ranked 2nd in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after also being ranked 2nd in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school second in the state in its 2008 report. The school was ranked 1st in the magazine's 2006 rankings out of 316 schools included across the state. On November 30, 2007, McNair Academic was featured on News 12 New Jersey having ranked among the top 100 public high schools in the country. Schooldigger.com ranked the school as one of 16 schools tied for first out of 381 public high schools