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

This table, in plain English

What it measures: for each Riverside 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: Riverside STEM Academy's 57 means its seniors earned 57 selective-UC admissions for every 100 students in the class. For scale, the median California high school scores about 18; the median Riverside County school scores 16.

The story in one sentence: Riverside is the counter-example in this series: its median school scores slightly below the California median, but its schools convert UC applications into admissions at the highest rates of any county 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. Riverside converts better than the Bay Area — by a wide margin. Desert Mirage turns 35% of its UC applications into admissions, Cathedral City 33%, Nuview Bridge 31%, and Palm Desert, Xavier and San Jacinto Leadership all 30%. Santa Clara's public powerhouses convert 18–22%. Riverside students apply to fewer campuses and are admitted to a larger share of them.
2. But the county's scores sit below the state's. The median Riverside school scores 16, against about 18 statewide. Only two schools in the county clear 50 and none reaches 100 — where Los Angeles has 59 above 50 and Santa Clara has three above 100.
3. Both readings are true, and that is the point. The Reach Score counts admissions per 100 seniors, so a class that applies to two campuses each cannot score like one that applies to six. Low volume depresses the score and raises the conversion rate at the same time. Read the two columns together.
4. The top of the table is small and specialized. Riverside STEM Academy (57, 51 seniors), Temecula Preparatory (43) and John F Kennedy Middle College (42) are all small programs. The county's big comprehensives sit lower despite strong absolute numbers.
5. Eleanor Roosevelt is the county at scale. It graduates 1,083 seniors — the largest class in the county — files 1,337 UC applications and converts 28% of them, for a score of 35, comfortably above the county median.

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 40 Riverside 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.