Martin Luther King High School
Riverside · Riverside County · Monterey Peninsula Unified · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Pacific Grove High School → Carmel High School → Marina High → Seaside High School → Ceiba College Preparatory Academy → Compare all similar →A parent's read
- 2 in 3 graduates leave eligible for UC and CSU. 70% finish the A-G courses California's universities require before a student can even apply — most California schools manage about 6 in 10.
- Elite admits are rare — here and everywhere. Berkeley and UCLA admitted 21 of this class's 561 UC applications. The strong middle campuses — San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Davis — are where most real UC outcomes happen.
- Kids actually show up. Only 14% of students are chronically absent, versus about 23% statewide — day-to-day engagement most schools would envy.
- Most grads aim beyond the UC system. Seniors file only ~0.9 UC applications each — families here mostly target CSU, private, or out-of-state colleges, so judge this school on more than its UC numbers.
- Worth asking about: the recent trend. UC admissions per senior have slipped for three straight years. Ask the school what changed — counseling, course access, or just class-size shifts.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
At a glance
- AP rigor: Bottom 6% of US high schools
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, 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.
How Martin Luther King High School compares for families
Mid-pack college outcomes within California.
- ▸ StatewideUC Reach Score of 19 — right around the California median of 19.
- ▸ Locally📘 Top 10% in Riverside County on ELA proficiency.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsTrails the peer median (UC Reach Score 19 vs a 30 median) across the 5 most similar nearby schools.
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Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
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.
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 5.6 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 (+13.6%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~579 | +69 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~747 | +237 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~964 | +454 | $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 Martin Luther King High School really compare on getting kids to college?
We've ranked it #6 of 9 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
Pacific Grove High School · Carmel High School · Marina High · Seaside High School · Ceiba College Preparatory Academy · Monterey County Home Charter · +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 Riverside County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
221 of 2,799 students who enrolled at Martin Luther King High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (7.9% 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 — Monterey Peninsula 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: 46.2%
Federal: 14.9%
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 Monterey Peninsula 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).
Martin Luther King High School sent 561 applications to the six most selective University of California campuses and 22.5% were admitted, producing a UC Reach Score of 19 (top-6 UC admits per 100 seniors, counting a student at each campus that admitted them) — 0 points above the California median of 19, higher than 51% of California high schools. The school produces 3.2 UCLA + UC Berkeley admits per 100 seniors.
19
30
53
19
Higher than 51% of California high schools (1107 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Martin Luther King High School's UC Reach Score of 19 is above the California median (19). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53 or higher.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 95 — a gap of 76 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Martin Luther King High School's UC Reach is higher than 51% of California high schools (1107 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 | 3.95 | 4.27 | +0.32 | 17.5% | Peers +0.26 · steeper |
| UCLA | 3.92 | 4.34 | +0.42 | 9.6% | Peers +0.32 · steeper |
| UC San Diego | 3.87 | 4.21 | +0.34 | 22.8% | Peers +0.33 · matches |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.88 | 4.29 | +0.41 | 28.6% | Peers +0.32 · steeper |
| UC Irvine | 3.84 | 4.25 | +0.41 | 25.4% | Peers +0.31 · steeper |
| UC Davis | 3.83 | 4.22 | +0.40 | 36.0% | Peers +0.29 · steeper |
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 Martin Luther King High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (22.5% actual vs. 20.3% expected).
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 | 63 | 11 | 6 | 17.5% | 2 | 54.5% | 3.95 | 4.27 |
| UCLA → Elite | 104 | 10 | 5 | 9.6% | 2 | 50.0% | 3.92 | 4.34 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 123 | 28 | 10 | 22.8% | 4 | 35.7% | 3.87 | 4.21 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 91 | 26 | 4 | 28.6% | 4 | 15.4% | 3.88 | 4.29 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 130 | 33 | 10 | 25.4% | 5 | 30.3% | 3.84 | 4.25 |
| UC Davis → | 50 | 18 | —† | 36.0% | 3 | — | 3.83 | 4.22 |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for Martin Luther King 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 (19) ranked head-to-head against your closest competitor schools
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently 13.6%/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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