Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
C E KING H S → DAVIS H S ALDINE → SUMMER CREEK H S → HUMBLE H S → ALDINE H S → HOUSTON MATH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER → NIMITZ H S → HEIGHTS H S →📋 At a glance
- 📚 21 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 8 calculus classes · 60 physics · 47 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: Top 3.7% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 87th percentile by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How MACARTHUR H S compares for families
Among the nation's most academically rigorous high schools.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor sits in the top 3.7% of US high schools with 21 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyTX students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+4 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: C E KING H S, DAVIS H S ALDINE, SUMMER CREEK H S 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
Top 3.7% of US high schools
✅ 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 · 2020-2187th 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.
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 -0.5%/year, projecting from 2024's 3,501 students:
≈ 81 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.
Revenue at risk
At $13,966 per student in district revenue, the 81 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $1,131,246/year in funding at risk.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C E KING H S HOUSTON |
Public | 7.9 | 3,716 | +16.6% |
| DAVIS H S ALDINE HOUSTON |
Public | 7.2 | 3,184 | +0.3% |
| SUMMER CREEK H S HOUSTON |
Public | 7.4 | 3,972 | +19.1% |
| HUMBLE H S HUMBLE |
Public | 7.4 | 2,960 | +2.8% |
| ALDINE H S HOUSTON |
Public | 4.9 | 2,481 | -9.7% |
| HOUSTON MATH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER HOUSTON |
Public | 4.2 | 2,396 | -12.8% |
| NIMITZ H S HOUSTON |
Public | 8.1 | 2,651 | -3.8% |
| HEIGHTS H S HOUSTON |
Public | 8.3 | 2,426 | -0.9% |