California High School
Whittier · Los Angeles County · Whittier Union High · Public
Shareable scorecard →Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
LA Serna High School → Sunny Hills High School → Norwalk High School → El Rancho High School → Mayfair High School → Compare all similar →A parent's read
- About 2 in 3 students read and write at grade level. On the state's own 11th-grade test, 71% met or exceeded the college-readiness bar — the top quarter of California high schools (statewide: 54%).
- Elite admits are rare — here and everywhere. Berkeley and UCLA admitted 18 of this class's 373 UC applications. The strong middle campuses — San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Davis — are where most real UC outcomes happen.
- Most grads aim beyond the UC system. Seniors file only ~0.7 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.
At a glance
- 19 AP courses offered — Elite
- Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 6 calculus classes · 24 physics · 44 chemistry
- AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 11% by test-taker volume
- 4-yr grad rate: 98% in 2019 (Top 2.3% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns 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
73.1% 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 74.8% had enrolled — CDE publishes a 16-month window alongside the 12-month one, 440 students.
Up 4.3 points from the 2021-22 class (68.8%).
Where the 2022-23 class enrolled
In California — 416 students (70.7%)
Out of state — 14 students (2.4%)
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 California High School compares for families
Real college outcomes data available below.
- ▸ StatewideUC Reach Score of 12 — 7 points below the California median of 19.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsRight at the peer median (UC Reach Score 14) across the 5 most similar nearby schools.
For Parents
Get alerts when California High School's numbers change
New admissions results, enrollment shifts, test scores — a few alerts a year, no spam. Your email also saves your list across devices.
Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
90th 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 · 2020-21Bottom 11% 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?
Top 2.3% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
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.
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.
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 11.1 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 (-3.2%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,189 | -74 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,049 | -214 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,918 | -345 | $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 California High School really compare on getting kids to college?
We've ranked it #7 of 11 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
LA Serna High School · Sunny Hills High School · Norwalk High School · El Rancho High School · Mayfair High School · LA Habra 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 Los Angeles County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Families who enroll at California High stay (91.2% stability — elite). But enrollment is dropping 1.6× the county rate (school -8.3% vs. county -5.3%). The audit question isn't why students leave — it's why fewer families are choosing to enroll in the first place.
207 of 2,354 students who enrolled at California High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (8.8% 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 — Whittier Union High (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: 29.6%
Federal: 12.2%
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 Whittier Union High 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).
California High School sent 373 applications to the six most selective University of California campuses and 17.4% were admitted, producing a UC Reach Score of 12 (top-6 UC admits per 100 seniors, counting a student at each campus that admitted them) — 6 points below the California median of 19, higher than 28% of California high schools. The school produces 3.5 UCLA + UC Berkeley admits per 100 seniors.
19
14
53
12
Higher than 28% of California high schools (1107 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
California High School's UC Reach Score of 12 is below the California median (19). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53 or higher.
But in Los Angeles County, where the local median is 25 and the top-10% bar is 56, this score is mid-pack rather than exceptional — typical of its market rather than a standout.
Overall, California High School's UC Reach is higher than 28% of California high schools (1107 ranked).
UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2025
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) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 55 | 11 | 4 | 20.0% | 2 | 36.4% | — | —† |
| UCLA → Elite | 90 | 7 | 5 | 7.8% | 1 | 71.4% | — | —† |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 49 | 7 | —† | 14.3% | 1 | — | — | —† |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 49 | 18 | 6 | 36.7% | 3 | 33.3% | — | —† |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 95 | 7 | —† | 7.4% | 1 | — | — | —† |
| UC Davis → | 35 | 15 | —† | 42.9% | 3 | — | — | —† |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for California High School
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 (12) ranked head-to-head against your closest competitor schools
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently -3.2%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals
Related reading
Behind the data · August 24, 2026
UC testing review · August 25, 2026