Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Harbor High → Soquel High → Santa Cruz County Community → Aptos High → Pajaro Valley High → Santa Cruz County ROP → Scotts Valley High → San Lorenzo Valley High →🧭 A parent's read
- 95% graduate on time. Nearly every student who starts 9th grade here finishes in four years — the strongest baseline signal a school can post.
- Course rigor in the top 10% of US high schools. 18 AP courses plus advanced math and lab-science depth — measured against every high school in the country, not just the neighborhood.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
📋 At a glance
- 📚 18 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 10 calculus classes · 7 physics · 9 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 56th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 95% (75th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Santa Cruz High compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 18 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyCA trails the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (−4 points). Stronger local schools matter even more.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Harbor High, Soquel High, Santa Cruz County Community and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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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
90th percentile nationally
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 · 2020-2156th 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?
75th 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.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Lower-need school
Not Title I eligible (FRPL < 25%)
<25% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Well below the Title I threshold; expect a higher-income student body on average.
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.
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 -0.9%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,093 students:
≈ 49 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harbor High Santa Cruz |
Public | 2.4 | 1,013 | -2.9% |
| Soquel High Soquel |
Public | 4.3 | 1,074 | +5.1% |
| Santa Cruz County Community Santa Cruz |
Public | 1.2 | 717 | +11.5% |
| Aptos High Aptos |
Public | 9.5 | 1,274 | -10.2% |
| Pajaro Valley High Watsonville |
Public | 13.9 | 1,293 | -17.2% |
| Santa Cruz County ROP Santa Cruz |
Public | 1.1 | — | — |
| Scotts Valley High Scotts Valley |
Public | 7.1 | 611 | -16.8% |
| San Lorenzo Valley High Felton |
Public | 6.8 | 578 | -18.2% |