Panther Creek High
Cary · NC · Wake County Schools · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Green Hope High → Green Level High → Apex High → Apex Friendship High → Leesville Road High → Cary High → Athens Drive High → Enloe High →📋 At a glance
- 📚 25 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 22 calculus classes · 20 physics · 42 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 71th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 92th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 98% (Top 2.3% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Panther Creek High compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor at the 71th percentile nationally with 25 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyNC sits right at the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math — local school quality will set your kid apart.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Green Hope High, Green Level High, Apex High and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
71th 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 · 2020-2192th 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?
Top 2.3% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
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.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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 $11,655/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 strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
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 +4.0%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,609 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $10,700 per student in district revenue, the 570 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $6,099,000/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green Hope High Cary |
Public | 2.2 | 2,304 | +11.3% |
| Green Level High Cary |
Public | 4.1 | 2,283 | +17.9% |
| Apex High Apex |
Public | 6.6 | 2,449 | +1.5% |
| Apex Friendship High Apex |
Public | 9.0 | 2,748 | -1.0% |
| Leesville Road High Raleigh |
Public | 10.4 | 2,411 | -8.0% |
| Cary High Cary |
Public | 8.0 | 2,044 | -1.3% |
| Athens Drive High Raleigh |
Public | 10.9 | 2,156 | +5.6% |
| Enloe High Raleigh |
Public | 16.3 | 2,643 | +9.4% |