East Palo Alto Academy
East Palo Alto · San Mateo County · Sequoia Union High · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Everest Public High School → Kipp Esperanza High School → Tide Academy → Aspire East Palo Alto Charter → Summit Preparatory Charter High → Compare all similar →🎓 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 family's net price — yours depends on your income — 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 net price →Sources: UC Office of the President (admits); IPEDS net price + College Scorecard 10-yr earnings (cost & payoff). Full campus-by-campus breakdown below.
How East Palo Alto Academy compares for families
Real college outcomes data available below.
- ▸ StatewideUC Reach Score of 4 — 14 points below the California median of 18.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsTrails the peer median (UC Reach Score 4 vs a 10 median) across the 5 most similar nearby schools.
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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 11.6 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 (-4.1%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~235 | -10 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~216 | -29 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~199 | -46 | $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 East Palo Alto Academy really compare on getting kids to college?
We've ranked it #6 of 6 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
Everest Public High School · Kipp Esperanza High School · Tide Academy · Aspire East Palo Alto Charter · Summit Preparatory Charter High · Mission Early College High Sch · +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 Mateo County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment is shrinking 1.8× the county rate (school -9.3% vs. county -5.3%) with stability (93.1%) near the county median. Two problems compounding — the recruitment side is the higher-leverage starting point. Chronic absenteeism is also at 32.0% (up +11.6 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
20 of 288 students who enrolled at East Palo Alto Academy this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (6.9% 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 — Sequoia 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: 79.5%
Federal: 3.9%
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 Sequoia 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).
East Palo Alto Academy sent 40 applications to the six most selective University of California campuses and 7.5% were admitted, producing a UC Reach Score of 4 — 14 points below the California median of 18, higher than 3% of California high schools..
-6 pts vs. peer median (10) · Ranked #6 of 6 similar schools
18
10
51
4
Higher than 3% of California high schools (980 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
East Palo Alto Academy's UC Reach Score of 4 is below the California median (18). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 51 or higher.
But in San Mateo County, where the local median is 32 and the top-10% bar is 65, this score is mid-pack rather than exceptional — typical of its market rather than a standout.
Overall, East Palo Alto Academy's UC Reach is higher than 3% of California high schools (980 ranked).
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 Berkeley | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out | Filtered out |
| UC San Diego | Strong shot | Moderate | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Davis | Strong shot | Strong shot | Real shot | Filtered out |
The numbers behind it
| Campus | Applicant GPA | Admit GPA | Lift ⓘ | Admit rate | vs peer schools @ same GPA ⓘ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley (2021) | 3.41 | 3.95 | +0.53 | 26.3% | — |
| UC San Diego (2022) | 3.57 | 4.19 | +0.62 | 41.7% | Peers +0.43 · steeper |
| UC Davis (2022) | 3.96 | 4.23 | +0.27 | 55.6% | Peers +0.26 · matches |
📊 Statewide CA admit rates by individual GPA band, 2025 (for reference)
| GPA band | UCB | UCLA | UCSD | UCSB | UCI | UCD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.00+ | 17.0% | 15.1% | 45.2% | 62.3% | 46.3% | 65.9% |
| 3.70–3.99 | 3.1% | 1.6% | 9.3% | 17.6% | 17.0% | 31.1% |
| 3.30–3.69 | 0.8% | 0.5% | 1.5% | 2.8% | 2.4% | 10.3% |
| 3.00–3.29 | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 1.9% |
| < 3.00 | 0.7% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.7% |
UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2025
Class size from CDE grade 12 enrollment. Campus-level data — applicant/admit totals may count a student at multiple campuses more than once.
Campus Breakdown — 2025
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach Score | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 8 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.69 | —† |
| UCLA → Elite | 11 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.52 | —† |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 6 | 3 | —† | 50.0% | 4 | — | 3.63 | —† |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 8 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.67 | —† |
| UC Davis → | 7 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.31 | —† |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for East Palo Alto Academy
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 (4) ranked head-to-head against your closest competitor schools
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently -4.1%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals