Hillcrest Academy-South
WESTFIELD · NJ · Union County Educational Services Commission · Public
📄 Shareable scorecard →Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Hillcrest Academy-North → The Queen City Academy Charter School → Union County Career & Technical Institute → Union County TEAMS Charter School → Pinnacle Academy High School → Piscataway Regional Day School → Future Foundations Academy (FFA) → Lamberts Mill Academy →📋 At a glance
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 6% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 41% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Hillcrest Academy-South compares for families
What families should know about Hillcrest Academy-South.
- ▸ LocallyNJ students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+12 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Hillcrest Academy-North, The Queen City Academy Charter School, Union County Career & Technical Institute and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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Get an email when Hillcrest Academy-South's numbers change — new admissions results, enrollment shifts, test scores. A few updates a year, no spam.
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 41% 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.
👩🏫 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
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.
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
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
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 $24,406/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.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of +5.8%/year, projecting from 2024's 87 students:
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hillcrest Academy-North SCOTCH PLAINS |
Public | 3.1 | 74 | -1.3% |
| The Queen City Academy Charter School PLAINFIELD |
Public · charter | 5.5 | 94 | — |
| Union County Career & Technical Institute Scotch Plains |
Public | 1.7 | 67 | — |
| Union County TEAMS Charter School PLAINFIELD |
Public · charter | 5.2 | 99 | -34.0% |
| Pinnacle Academy High School PLAINFIELD |
Public | 4.5 | 67 | +11.7% |
| Piscataway Regional Day School PISCATAWAY |
Public | 8.1 | 76 | — |
| Future Foundations Academy (FFA) Piscataway |
Public | 8.2 | 76 | — |
| Lamberts Mill Academy WESTFIELD |
Public | 0.0 | 38 | — |