Academy for Academic Excellence
Apple Valley · San Bernardino County · Apple Valley Unified · Public
Shareable scorecard →Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
Victor Valley High School → Granite Hills High School → University Preparatory → Taylion High Desert Academy/Adelanto → Excelsior Charter → Compare all similar →A parent's read
- About 8 in 10 students read and write at grade level. On the state's own 11th-grade test, 79% met or exceeded the college-readiness bar — the top quarter of California high schools (statewide: 54%).
- Families don't leave. 96% of students who start the year here finish it here — top-tier retention statewide. Kids stay; that tells you something no test score does.
- Most grads aim beyond the UC system. Seniors file only ~0.6 UC applications each — families here mostly target CSU, private, or out-of-state colleges, so judge this school on more than its UC numbers.
- One question for any counselor: who should still test? Plenty of strong students skip the SAT/ACT now — but merit scholarships at dozens of colleges still key off scores. Ask how the school decides who should still sit for one.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
Where grads go — and what it costs & pays
UC admits by campus · Class of 2025
Getting in is step one. The cost above is the average aid-receiving family's net price — yours depends on whether you qualify for aid — and your child's odds depend on their GPA + scores. See your family's real numbers at these campuses:
Get my child's odds + our real costs →Sources: UC Office of the President (admits); IPEDS net price + College Scorecard 10-yr earnings (cost & payoff). Full campus-by-campus breakdown below.
California College-Going Rate
89% of the 2022-23 graduating class enrolled in college within a year.
The share of 2022-23 graduates who enrolled at a college anywhere in the U.S. within 12 months, per the National Student Clearinghouse match the California Department of Education publishes.
Give the same class four more months and 89% had enrolled — CDE publishes a 16-month window alongside the 12-month one, 81 students.
Down 6.8 points from the 2021-22 class (95.8%).
Where the 2022-23 class enrolled
In California — 73 students (80.2%)
Out of state — 8 students (8.8%)
CDE puts each graduate in one bucket only — whichever kind of college they were enrolled in longest — so these add up to the rate above. That is a different count from the UC Reach Score on this page, which counts a student at every UC campus that admitted them.
Source: California Department of Education, College-Going Rate (DataQuest) ↗, cohort 2022-23, posted 17-Sep-2025. Data file: cgr12mo23.txt ↗ (and the 16-month file ↗). CDE builds the rate by matching California high school completers to National Student Clearinghouse enrollment records; we publish CDE’s aggregates and hold no student-level data.
How Academy for Academic Excellence compares for families
Mid-pack college outcomes within California.
- ▸ StatewideUC Reach Score of 16 — right around the California median of 19.
- ▸ Locally🎯 Top 10% in California on Attendance (lowest chronic absenteeism).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsBeats the peer median (UC Reach Score 16 vs a 12 median) across the 5 most similar nearby schools.
For Parents
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Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
SBAC academic outcomes — grade 11, 2025
Share of grade-11 students meeting or exceeding the California standard on Smarter Balanced ELA and Math. This is the academic-readiness signal that pairs with UC Reach (post-grad outcomes), stability (retention), and absenteeism (engagement). Note: statewide median Math is only ~20% — a school at 20% isn't an outlier; one at 45%+ genuinely is.
Source: California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) Smarter Balanced research files. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥30 tested students.
Student composition — 2025-26
HS grades 9–12 racial/ethnic composition and program subgroups, from CDE Census Day Enrollment. Two-year shift shown when ≥1 pt — surfaces how the community served has changed since 2023-24.
Race / ethnicity
Program subgroups
Source: California Department of Education, Census Day Enrollment 2025-26 (HS grades 9–12). Δ shown when shift is ≥1 pt since 2023-24. Categories below 0.5% omitted.
Chronic absenteeism — 2024-25
Share of students missing 10% or more of expected attendance — the leading indicator that often precedes the demand decline shown above. Families disengaging tend to raise absenteeism first, then formally leave. Basis: grades 9–12.
Absenteeism is up 3.2 pp since 2016-17. A rising absenteeism trend often precedes formal departure — worth investigating which subgroups are driving it.
Source: California Department of Education, Chronic Absenteeism 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 eligible students. CDE didn't publish a usable 2019-20 file (COVID).
Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (+0.6%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,507 | +9 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,525 | +27 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,543 | +45 | $0 |
Straight-line extrapolation of the recent annual rate — a what-if, not a forecast of intent. Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423/ADA). Edit the figure to match your school.
How does Academy for Academic Excellence really compare on getting kids to college?
We've ranked it #3 of 8 most similar nearby schools on UC Reach. Unlock the full snapshot to see the head-to-head — who's ahead, by how much, and where it's heading.
Your similar-school group includes
Victor Valley High School · Granite Hills High School · University Preparatory · Taylion High Desert Academy/Adelanto · Excelsior Charter · Silverado High School · +4 more
Enrollment stability & demand — 2024-25
Two complementary signals: retention (do students stay once enrolled?) and demand (are families choosing the school?). Read against the San Bernardino County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Academy for Academic Excellence outperformed San Bernardino County on enrollment (school +13.4% vs. county +0.0%) AND maintains 96.0% stability. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
18 of 449 students who enrolled at Academy for Academic Excellence this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (4.0% non-stability). Mid-year transfers, dropouts, and other exits are all counted.
Stability by student group
Nearest peer high schools
Source: California Department of Education, Stability Rate 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 cumulative enrollees so by-design-high-churn continuation schools don't dominate the bottom of the distribution. Cumulative enrollment counts every student on the rolls during the year, so it can exceed peak-day enrollment.
District financial profile — Apple Valley Unified (FY2020)
From 4 years of NCES F-33 filings (the federally-mandated district finance survey). Public schools don't have their own books — the district does. These figures show the financial scale, revenue dependence, instruction-vs-overhead mix, and long-term debt that shape what a school can sustain.
Local: 13.6%
Federal: 13.8%
Source: NCES F-33 Annual Survey of School System Finances (Urban Institute Education Data API). Latest year currently published: FY2020. F-33 is a district-level federal filing — it reflects the Apple Valley Unified as a whole, not this individual school's books. Revenue mix shows where the district's dollars come from (state aid dominates in CA via LCFF). Instruction share is current expenditure on instruction ÷ total current expenditure (national benchmark ~60%). Long-term debt is end-of-year outstanding (mostly facilities bonds).
Academy for Academic Excellence sent 64 applications to the six most selective University of California campuses and 26.6% were admitted, producing a UC Reach Score of 16 (top-6 UC admits per 100 seniors, counting a student at each campus that admitted them) — 3 points below the California median of 19, higher than 43% of California high schools. The school produces 2.9 UCLA + UC Berkeley admits per 100 seniors.
19
12
53
16
Higher than 43% of California high schools (1107 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Academy for Academic Excellence's UC Reach Score of 16 is below the California median (19). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53 or higher.
In San Bernardino County, where the local median is just 13, this score is unusually strong for its immediate market.
Overall, Academy for Academic Excellence's UC Reach is higher than 43% of California high schools (1107 ranked).
GPA figures reflect 2024 — UC has not yet released applicant/admit GPA for 2025.
UC funnel — which kids are getting in at what GPA
Combining the school's applicant pool GPA, admit pool GPA, actual admit rate, and statewide CA admit rates by individual GPA band, we can read which GPA tiers tend to get in — and which don't.
| Campus | 4.00+ GPA | 3.70–3.99 GPA | 3.30–3.69 GPA | < 3.30 GPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC San Diego | Strong shot | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Santa Barbara | Strong shot | Moderate | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Irvine | Strong shot | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Davis | Strong shot | Real shot | Moderate | Filtered out |
The numbers behind it
| Campus | Applicant GPA | Admit GPA | Lift ⓘ | Admit rate | vs peer schools @ same GPA ⓘ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC San Diego | 4.01 | 4.22 | +0.21 | 47.6% | Peers +0.25 · wider |
| UC Santa Barbara | 4.00 | 4.23 | +0.23 | 38.5% | Peers +0.26 · matches |
| UC Irvine | 4.03 | 4.16 | +0.13 | 38.1% | Peers +0.19 · wider |
| UC Davis | 4.08 | 4.12 | +0.05 | 90.9% | Peers +0.17 · wider |
Statewide CA admit rates by individual GPA band, 2024 (for reference)
| GPA band | UCB | UCLA | UCSD | UCSB | UCI | UCD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.00+ | 17.1% | 14.4% | 43.5% | 57.3% | 46.0% | 64.1% |
| 3.70–3.99 | 2.8% | 1.5% | 11.2% | 9.2% | 16.5% | 27.5% |
| 3.30–3.69 | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.4% | 2.3% | 3.4% | 9.1% |
| 3.00–3.29 | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 2.1% |
| < 3.00 | 0.6% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.6% |
Where Academy for Academic Excellence sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants 19.6 points above what their GPAs predict (41.4% actual vs. 21.8% expected), based on 2024 data.
UC Outcomes Trend — 2019–2025
Class size from CDE grade 12 enrollment. Campus-level data: applicant and admit totals count a student once at EACH campus. A senior admitted to UCLA and UC San Diego adds 2 to the admit total, so the total can exceed the senior class — that is the metric working as defined, not an error. The admit RATE is unaffected: both its numerator and denominator are campus-level.
Campus Breakdown — 2025
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach Score | Yield | Avg GPA (App) '24 | Avg GPA (Adm) '24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 6 | 3 | —† | 50.0% | 3 | — | 4.06 | —† |
| UCLA → Elite | 13 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 4.03 | —† |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 17 | 4 | —† | 23.5% | 4 | — | 4.01 | 4.22 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 9 | 4 | —† | 44.4% | 4 | — | 4.00 | 4.23 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 19 | 6 | —† | 31.6% | 6 | — | 4.03 | 4.16 |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for Academy for Academic Excellence
A board- and LCAP-ready intelligence brief: your enrollment retention and college outcomes, benchmarked against your closest competitors, with a 5-year forecast, concrete steps to act on, and the rigor + outcomes story you can share with your families. Built from primary public data — prepared for you, not auto-generated.
- ✓Your UC Reach Score (16) ranked head-to-head against your closest competitor schools
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently 0.6%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals
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