Southwestern High School
Shelbyville · IN · Southwestern Con Sch Shelby Co · Public · K-12 combined
📄 Shareable scorecard →📋 At a glance
- 📚 8 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 1 physics · 5 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 76th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 36% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 95% (75th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Southwestern High School compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 24% nationally with 8 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyIN students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Waldron Jr-Sr High School, Excel Center - Shelbyville, Edinburgh Community High School 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
76th percentile nationally
✅ 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 · 2020-21Bottom 36% 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?
75th 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
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.
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
Indiana University-Bloomington
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 $16,264/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 Indiana
Indiana's public scholarships
Indiana's signature aid is income-qualified and front-loaded: families must enroll in 21st Century Scholars back in middle school. The Frank O'Bannon Grant is the open need-based backstop.
Income-qualified promise: sign up in 7th–8th grade, then earn it with a 2.5 GPA and a Core 40 diploma. Covers up to full public-college tuition. (Must enroll in the program in 7th or 8th grade.)
Official program details ↗Indiana's main need-based grant — awarded on FAFSA financial need with no GPA or test gate. (File the FAFSA by April 15; enroll full-time.)
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.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
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 -1.1%/year, projecting from 2024's 264 students:
≈ 14 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 $13,206 per student in district revenue, the 14 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $184,884/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waldron Jr-Sr High School Waldron |
Public | 9.9 | 176 | +9.3% |
| Excel Center - Shelbyville Shelbyville |
Public · charter | 7.0 | 131 | -3.7% |
| Edinburgh Community High School Edinburgh |
Public | 9.0 | 230 | +1.3% |
| Morristown Jr-Sr High School Morristown |
Public | 17.9 | 168 | -11.1% |
| Hauser Jr-Sr High School Hope |
Public | 10.9 | 279 | -14.7% |
| Blue River Career Programs Shelbyville |
Public | 5.8 | — | — |
| South Decatur Jr-Sr High School Greensburg |
Public | 21.5 | 245 | -5.8% |
| Indianapolis Metropolitan High Sch Indianapolis |
Public · charter | 29.6 | 194 | -24.2% |