Where Kern County's high school grads get into the UC system

This table, in plain English

What it measures: for each Kern County high school, how many admissions its graduating class earned to the six most selective UC campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Davis), per 100 seniors. Higher score = the class graduated with more UC options on the table. It comes straight from the University of California's own school-by-school admissions counts.

How to read one row: Garces Memorial High School's 44 means its seniors earned 44 selective-UC admissions for every 100 students in the class. For scale, the median California high school scores about 18; the median Kern County school scores 10.

The story in one sentence: Kern is the floor of this series — no school clears a Reach Score of 50 and the median is 10 — yet Tehachapi converts more than half the UC applications it files, the highest rate of any school we have published.

One honest caution: the Reach Score is not an admit rate. A student admitted to three UC campuses counts three times — it measures the breadth of options a class earned, which is why an exceptional school can score above 100. The full definition is below the table.

5 takeaways

1. No Kern County school clears 50. It is the only county in this series where none does. The top score is Garces Memorial's 44, and the median school scores 10 against about 18 statewide.
2. Tehachapi has the highest conversion rate in the series. It turns 51% of its UC applications into admissions — 69 applications, and more than half succeed. Cesar E. Chavez in Delano converts 39% and Garces 37%. Applying selectively is not the same as applying weakly.
3. Private schools take two of the top three. Garces Memorial (44) and Bakersfield Christian (34) lead, with the Wonderful College Prep Academy in Delano (34) tied alongside — unusual for an inland county, where the tables are normally almost entirely public.
4. Delano places four schools in the top thirteen. Wonderful College Prep (34), Cesar E. Chavez (12), Robert F. Kennedy (12) and Delano High (11) — a farm-belt city of about 50,000 with more entries near the top of this table than Bakersfield's comprehensives manage.
5. Bakersfield carries the volume. Eleven of the top twenty are Bakersfield schools. Stockdale files the county's largest application load (523) for a score of 25; Bakersfield High graduates the county's biggest class at 747 and scores 6.

How to read the Reach Score: admissions to the six most selective UC campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Davis) per 100 graduating seniors. A student admitted to several campuses counts at each — which is why an exceptional school can score above 100. It measures the breadth of a class's UC options, not an admit rate.

Coverage: the top 32 Kern County schools with published 2025 UC outcomes and at least 50 seniors. Schools whose data failed integrity checks are excluded, as are schools that filed UC applications but recorded no admissions. School-level admit counts include all admits (UC publishes no breakout of recruited athletes or other categories). Source: University of California Office of the President, freshman application/admission counts by school, Fall 2025; enrollment from CDE / Private School Affidavit. See the full methodology.