Waukegan High School
Waukegan · IL · Waukegan CUSD 60 · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Warren Township High School → Adlai E Stevenson High School → Zion-Benton Twnshp Hi Sch → Mundelein Cons High School → Bridges Program ALOP → Laremont School → Lake Co Collaborative Alop → Lake County Cooperative ALOP →📋 At a glance
- 📚 21 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 50 physics · 45 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 86th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Top 0.1% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Waukegan High School compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 14% nationally with 21 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: Warren Township High School, Adlai E Stevenson High School, Zion-Benton Twnshp Hi Sch 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 0.1% 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
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
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 -2.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 4,186 students:
≈ 522 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 $22,115 per student in district revenue, the 522 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $11,544,030/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warren Township High School Gurnee |
Public | 7.0 | 3,537 | -7.6% |
| Adlai E Stevenson High School Lincolnshire |
Public | 12.1 | 4,758 | +8.3% |
| Zion-Benton Twnshp Hi Sch Zion |
Public | 6.8 | 2,114 | -4.3% |
| Mundelein Cons High School Mundelein |
Public | 10.9 | 2,282 | +3.3% |
| Bridges Program ALOP Gurnee |
Public | 7.0 | — | — |
| Laremont School Gages Lake |
Public | 7.1 | — | — |
| Lake Co Collaborative Alop Grayslake |
Public | 7.3 | — | — |
| Lake County Cooperative ALOP Gages Lake |
Public | 7.3 | — | — |