Gretchen Whitney High School
Cerritos · Los Angeles County · Public
Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
John Glenn High School → Pioneer High → Artesia High School → Oxford Academy → Western High School → Compare all similar →🧭 A parent's read
- The UC pipeline here is real. 222 admissions to the top six UC campuses for a class of 176 seniors puts this school in the top handful of schools in California.
- Where grads land in the UC system: UC Irvine. More graduates enroll at UC Irvine than any other UC. Berkeley and UCLA admitted 37 of this class's 742 UC applications — elite admits are rare everywhere, and the strong middle campuses are where most real outcomes happen.
- Almost all students read and write at grade level. On the state's own 11th-grade test, 100% met or exceeded the college-readiness bar — the top 10% of California high schools (statewide: 54%).
- Almost all graduates leave eligible for UC and CSU. 96% finish the A-G courses California's universities require before a student can even apply — most California schools manage about 6 in 10.
- Worth asking about on a tour: counselor load. One counselor serves about 336 students here — above the 250-to-1 level counseling experts recommend. Ask how junior-year college advising actually gets covered.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
📋 At a glance
- 📚 15 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 7 calculus classes · 11 physics · 10 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 71st percentile nationally
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 97% (90th percentile nationally)
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 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 Gretchen Whitney High School compares for families
One of California's strongest schools for college outcomes.
- ▸ StatewideUC Reach Score of 126 — 108 points above the California median of 18. Ahead of 100% of California high schools.
- ▸ Locally🎓 Top 1% in California on UC Reach — plus 1 more top-rank.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsBeats the peer median (UC Reach Score 126 vs a 16 median) across the 5 most similar nearby schools.
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Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
71st 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 · 2020-21Source: 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?
90th 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.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Mixed-income school
Below Title I eligibility threshold (FRPL < 35%)
25-34% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Below the federal Title I threshold but a meaningful share of the population is income-eligible for free lunch.
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.
Low and stable absenteeism — students are engaged and showing up. The leading indicator is healthy.
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 (+0.1%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,010 | +1 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,011 | +2 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,013 | +4 | $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 Gretchen Whitney High School really compare on getting kids to college?
We've ranked it #1 of 10 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
John Glenn High School · Pioneer High · Artesia High School · Oxford Academy · Western High School · Gahr (richard) High · +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.
Gretchen Whitney High School outperformed Los Angeles County on enrollment (school +3.7% vs. county -8.2%) AND maintains 99.6% stability. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
3 of 697 students who enrolled at Gretchen Whitney High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (0.4% 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.
Gretchen Whitney High School sent 742 applications to the six most selective University of California campuses and 29.9% were admitted, producing a UC Reach Score of 126 — 108 points above the California median of 18, higher than 100% of California high schools. The school produces 21.0 UCLA + UC Berkeley admits per 100 seniors.
+110 pts above peer median (16) · Ranked #1 of 10 similar schools
18
51
126
Higher than 99% of California high schools (980 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
126 is exceptional and very rare. For every 100 seniors at Gretchen Whitney High School, the school is generating roughly 126 admissions to California's six most selective UCs (UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCI, UCD). The typical strong senior here is winning admission at multiple top campuses — a result fewer than 1% of California high schools achieve.
This places Gretchen Whitney High School in the elite tier statewide — the top-1% threshold is 97.
Overall, Gretchen Whitney High School's UC Reach is higher than 99% 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 |
| UCLA | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out | Filtered out |
| UC San Diego | Strong shot | Moderate | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Santa Barbara | Strong shot | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Irvine | Strong shot | Real shot | 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 | 4.18 | 4.28 | +0.10 | 19.3% | Peers +0.15 · wider |
| UCLA | 4.15 | 4.31 | +0.17 | 9.4% | Peers +0.18 · matches |
| UC San Diego | 4.16 | 4.31 | +0.15 | 23.6% | Peers +0.17 · matches |
| UC Santa Barbara | 4.16 | 4.28 | +0.11 | 48.0% | Peers +0.17 · wider |
| UC Irvine | 4.15 | 4.26 | +0.11 | 43.3% | Peers +0.14 · matches |
| UC Davis | 4.17 | 4.26 | +0.09 | 46.3% | Peers +0.13 · wider |
📊 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% |
Where Gretchen Whitney High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants 5.3 points above what their GPAs predict (29.9% actual vs. 24.6% expected).
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 | 119 | 23 | 13 | 19.3% | 13 | 56.5% | 4.18 | 4.28 |
| UCLA → Elite | 149 | 14 | 10 | 9.4% | 8 | 71.4% | 4.15 | 4.31 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 140 | 33 | 3 | 23.6% | 19 | 9.1% | 4.16 | 4.31 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 102 | 49 | 6 | 48.0% | 28 | 12.2% | 4.16 | 4.28 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 150 | 65 | 19 | 43.3% | 37 | 29.2% | 4.15 | 4.26 |
| UC Davis → | 82 | 38 | 6 | 46.3% | 22 | 15.8% | 4.17 | 4.26 |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for Gretchen Whitney 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 (126) ranked head-to-head against your closest competitor schools
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently 0.1%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals