Columbia High School
MAPLEWOOD · NJ · South Orange-Maplewood School District · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Irvington High School → Livingston High School → Barringer High School → West Orange High School → East Orange Campus High School → East Side High School → Bloomfield High School → Union High School →📋 At a glance
- 📚 23 AP courses offered — Elite
- 🔢 13 calculus classes · 29 physics · 22 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 82nd percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 84th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 92% (60th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Columbia High School compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 18% nationally with 23 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyNJ students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+12 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Irvington High School, Livingston High School, Barringer High School 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
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
82nd 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 · 2020-2184th 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?
60th percentile nationally
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
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
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 $24,406/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 most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss.
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 +0.9%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,985 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $24,259 per student in district revenue, the 94 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $2,280,346/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Irvington High School IRVINGTON |
Public | 1.7 | 1,913 | +24.8% |
| Livingston High School LIVINGSTON |
Public | 4.4 | 2,081 | +6.6% |
| Barringer High School NEWARK |
Public | 4.7 | 1,894 | +24.4% |
| West Orange High School WEST ORANGE |
Public | 4.9 | 2,106 | +3.2% |
| East Orange Campus High School EAST ORANGE |
Public | 4.1 | 1,798 | +17.8% |
| East Side High School NEWARK |
Public | 5.7 | 2,046 | +1.8% |
| Bloomfield High School Bloomfield |
Public | 5.7 | 2,055 | +6.3% |
| Union High School UNION |
Public | 2.4 | 2,410 | +8.1% |