Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Elberta High School → Foley High School → Orange Beach MiddleHigh School → Robertsdale High School → Fairhope High School → Spanish Fort High School → Baldwin County High School → South Baldwin Center For Technology →📋 At a glance
- 📚 12 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 1 calculus classes · 1 physics · 4 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 82nd percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 75th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 93% (67th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Gulf Shores High School compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 18% nationally with 12 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyAL trails the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (−10 points). Stronger local schools matter even more.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Elberta High School, Foley High School, Orange Beach MiddleHigh School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
82nd percentile nationally
✅ Gifted/talented program
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-2175th percentile by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
67th percentile nationally
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Mixed-income school
Below Title I eligibility threshold (FRPL < 35%)
25-34% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Below the federal Title I threshold but a meaningful share of the population is income-eligible for free lunch.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
The University of Alabama
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $22,420/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of +7.9%/year, projecting from 2024's 927 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $17,933 per student in district revenue, the 428 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $7,675,324/year in additional funding.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elberta High School Elberta |
Public | 11.4 | 735 | -0.8% |
| Foley High School Foley |
Public | 7.8 | 1,520 | +3.0% |
| Orange Beach MiddleHigh School Orange Beach |
Public | 3.7 | 459 | +12.8% |
| Robertsdale High School Robertsdale |
Public | 18.8 | 1,418 | +4.6% |
| Fairhope High School Fairhope |
Public | 20.1 | 1,518 | -5.5% |
| Spanish Fort High School Spanish Fort |
Public | 30.9 | 1,115 | -6.8% |
| Baldwin County High School Bay Minette |
Public | 43.7 | 940 | -7.2% |
| South Baldwin Center For Technology Robertsdale |
Public | 19.4 | — | — |