Idea College Prep
DONNA · TX · IDEA PUBLIC SCHOOLS · Public charter · K-12 combined
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY ALAMO → IDEA WESLACO PIKE COLLEGE PREPARATORY → IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY SAN JUAN → PROGRESO H S → IDEA COLLEGE PREP WESLACO → PSJA COLLEGIATE SCHOOL OF HEALTH PROFESSIONS → VANGUARD MOZART → IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY PHARR →📋 At a glance
- 📚 4 AP courses offered — Moderate
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 47% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 62nd percentile by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Idea College Prep compares for families
Solid mid-tier academic profile.
- ▸ LocallyTX students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+4 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY ALAMO, IDEA WESLACO PIKE COLLEGE PREPARATORY, IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY SAN JUAN 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
Moderate — some AP / advanced course access
Bottom 47% of US high schools
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 · 2020-2162nd 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.
👩🏫 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
High-poverty school
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥75% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. These schools qualify for the highest tier of federal Title I funding and typically receive extra wraparound services. Academic outcomes vary widely — check the state assessment + grad-rate tiles.
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 Texas at Austin
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 $19,857/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.
💰 Pay for college in Texas
Texas's public scholarships
Texas families have two big levers: a guaranteed-admission rule for the top of each graduating class, and the need-based TEXAS Grant that pairs with it. Class rank does more here than almost anywhere.
Graduate in the top 10% of your Texas public-HS class and finish the required curriculum for automatic admission to TX public universities (UT Austin caps at the top 5%). (Must finish the required college-prep curriculum (Distinguished plan).)
Official program details ↗Texas's flagship need-based grant — no GPA gate to qualify (a 3.0 or top-third rank just gives priority when funds run short). (Enroll within 16 months of HS, ≥¾ time, in a bachelor's program.)
Official program details ↗Graduate at least a semester early with the Distinguished plan plus a 3.0 GPA and an 80th-percentile test (or top-10% rank) for a TEXAS Grant-sized scholarship. (Graduate at least a semester early with the Distinguished plan.)
Official program details ↗Eligibility rules change yearly — confirm with the official program before relying on it. Amounts are recent published figures; awards cover tuition/fees, not housing or books unless noted. Verified 2026-06-14.
🎓 Graduation & Attendance
Does this school get students to the finish line — and keep them in the building?
Two things every family wants to know: do students graduate on time, and do they show up. These are TEA's official campus figures.
Source: Texas Education Agency, Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR), 2024-25, All Students. Graduation = 4-year longitudinal rate (Class of 2024); attendance & dropout = SY2023-24. TEA masks small-group results for privacy.
🎯 College & Career Readiness
How ready are this school's graduates for what comes next?
Beyond graduating, are students prepared — for college, a career, or the military? These are TEA's official readiness measures for the most recent graduating class.
What counts as CCMR-ready? →
Under TEA's accountability system, a graduate counts as College/Career/Military Ready by meeting any one of: a qualifying SAT/ACT or TSI score; AP/IB exam scores of 3+; college dual-credit with a C or better; an associate's degree; an industry-based certification; an OnRamps course; military enlistment; or an aligned career-prep program. It rolls "is this graduate prepared for what's next?" into one comparable number — which is why a school can post a high CCMR even when its average SAT is modest (strong career, military, and dual-credit pathways count too).
Source: Texas Education Agency, Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR), 2024-25, All Students. CCMR / SAT-ACT / AP-IB = Class of 2024 graduates; dual-credit = grades 9-12. School SAT/ACT averages are campus means, not the scores of admitted college applicants. TEA masks small-group results for privacy.
📝 Texas State Testing
STAAR End-of-Course results: how many students meet grade level.
The share of students scoring Meets Grade Level or above on Texas's high-school End-of-Course exams — the state's core academic-proficiency benchmark, reported for every campus.
What do Approaches / Meets / Masters mean? →
Texas reports STAAR at three rising bars: Approaches (likely to succeed in the next grade with support), Meets (solid command, on track for college/career readiness — the headline number above), and Masters (advanced command). End-of-Course exams are taken when a student finishes the course, so they reflect that subject's instruction, not a single grade.
Source: Texas Education Agency, Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) STAAR EOC performance, 2024-25, All Students. Small-group results are masked by TEA for privacy and shown only where reported.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: A low chronic-absence rate is the cleanest school-level signal of strong family connection, classroom culture, and student engagement — all upstream drivers of enrollment stability.
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 +5.1%/year, projecting from 2024's 823 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $13,366 per student in district revenue, the 232 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $3,100,912/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY ALAMO ALAMO |
Public · charter | 3.2 | 352 | -1.1% |
| IDEA WESLACO PIKE COLLEGE PREPARATORY WESLACO |
Public · charter | 5.3 | 364 | -3.2% |
| IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY SAN JUAN SAN JUAN |
Public · charter | 5.8 | 370 | -7.3% |
| PROGRESO H S PROGRESO |
Public | 8.2 | 431 | -6.7% |
| IDEA COLLEGE PREP WESLACO WESLACO |
Public · charter | 6.5 | 350 | -10.7% |
| PSJA COLLEGIATE SCHOOL OF HEALTH PROFESSIONS SAN JUAN |
Public | 6.4 | 340 | +507.1% |
| VANGUARD MOZART ALAMO |
Public · charter | 2.2 | 273 | +0.7% |
| IDEA COLLEGE PREPARATORY PHARR PHARR |
Public · charter | 8.7 | 449 | +6.4% |