Blog · Orange County · League table · September 17, 2026
Seven of Orange County's 25 highest UC Reach Scores are in one city
Seven of the 25 highest UC Reach Scores in Orange County belong to schools in one city.
Irvine.
I pulled the Fall 2025 numbers this week and that is the pattern that stands out. Public and private both: Crean Lutheran, University High, Northwood, Beckman, Woodbridge, Portola and Irvine High. Every one of them an Irvine school.
The measure is the UC Reach Score: admits to the six most selective UC campuses — Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine and Davis — counted at each campus, per 100 seniors.
Two schools land above 100. Sage Hill School in Newport Coast at 151, and Fairmont Preparatory Academy in Anaheim at 101. That happens because a student admitted to three campuses counts three times, which is the metric working as designed rather than a glitch.
Read it two ways and it stays honest. The score is a share, so a class of 148 seniors can lead it. Size shows up in the raw count instead, and by that measure Troy in Fullerton leads the county with 464 admits from a class of 648.
Neither reading is the real one. They answer different questions. A family choosing between two schools wants the share. A district asking what its graduates achieved wants the count.
One last thing worth saying plainly, because it gets lost every time a board like this goes around. These are admits, not enrollees. The family still chooses.
Every Orange County school is on the board at highschoolreach.com/rankings.
