Brooklyn Tech ranked 47th on the 2020 "U.S. News & World Report" "Best High Schools" list. In 2008 "Newsweek" listed it among five public high schools that were not in the magazine's 13 "Public Elite" ranking, explaining, ""Newsweek" 's Challenge Index is designed to recognize schools that challenge average students, and not magnet or charter schools that draw only the best students in their areas. These [...] were excluded from the list of top high schools because [...] their sky-high SAT and ACT scores indicate they have few or no average students". In the 2020 "U.S. News" ranking, Brooklyn Tech was in the top 8 high schools in New York State and in the top 50 in the nation.