Joliet Central High School
Joliet · IL · Joliet Twp HSD 204 · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Lockport Township High Sch East → Bolingbrook High School → Lincoln Way West → Minooka Community High School → Lincoln-Way East High School → Neuqua Valley High School → Carl Sandburg High School → Plainfield South High School →📋 At a glance
- 📚 17 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 44 physics · 24 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 86th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Top 0.3% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Joliet Central High School compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 14% nationally with 17 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyIL sits right at the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math — local school quality will set your kid apart.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Lockport Township High Sch East, Bolingbrook High School, Lincoln Way West 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
86th 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 · 2020-21Top 0.3% 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
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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 $14,355/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.
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 -1.0%/year, projecting from 2024's 3,295 students:
≈ 160 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 $23,827 per student in district revenue, the 160 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $3,812,320/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lockport Township High Sch East Lockport |
Public | 4.9 | 3,678 | -3.7% |
| Bolingbrook High School Bolingbrook |
Public | 11.2 | 3,298 | -2.5% |
| Lincoln Way West New Lenox |
Public | 4.4 | 2,047 | +4.1% |
| Minooka Community High School Channahon |
Public | 12.1 | 2,918 | +0.6% |
| Lincoln-Way East High School Frankfort |
Public | 11.4 | 2,696 | -1.5% |
| Neuqua Valley High School Naperville |
Public | 14.0 | 3,018 | -8.5% |
| Carl Sandburg High School Orland Park |
Public | 14.1 | 2,840 | -3.9% |
| Plainfield South High School Plainfield |
Public | 10.5 | 2,323 | -4.6% |