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Palo Alto Senior High School → Menlo Atherton High School → Sequoia High School → Woodside High School → Henry M. Gunn High → Compare all similar →🧭 A parent's read
- 9 in 10 graduates leave eligible for UC and CSU. 94% finish the A-G courses California's universities require before a student can even apply — most California schools manage about 6 in 10.
- Families don't leave. 97% of students who start the year here finish it here — top-tier retention statewide. Kids stay; that tells you something no test score does.
- About 3 in 4 students read and write at grade level. On the state's own 11th-grade test, 76% met or exceeded the college-readiness bar — the top quarter of California high schools (statewide: 54%).
- Worth asking about on a tour: counselor load. One counselor serves about 366 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
- 📚 27 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 13 calculus classes · 24 physics · 23 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 87th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 95% (75th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Palo Alto High compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 27 AP courses.
- ▸ Locally🧮 Top 5% in California on Math proficiency — plus 1 more top-rank.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Palo Alto Senior High School, Menlo Atherton High School, Sequoia High School and 2 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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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
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 · 2020-2187th percentile 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?
75th 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
Lower-need school
Not Title I eligible (FRPL < 25%)
<25% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Well below the Title I threshold; expect a higher-income student body on average.
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 9.4 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 (-1.9%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,794 | -34 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,727 | -101 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,663 | -165 | $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 Palo Alto High really compare on getting kids to college?
Unlock a head-to-head snapshot of Palo Alto High against its 10 most similar nearby schools — matched on size, location, type. See exactly where it stands on the college pipeline.
Your similar-school group includes
Palo Alto Senior High School · Menlo Atherton High School · Sequoia High School · Woodside High School · Henry M. Gunn High · Los Altos 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 Santa Clara County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Palo Alto High is shrinking (-1.9%) but Santa Clara County is shrinking faster (-6.2%), so Palo Alto High is winning roughly 4.3 pp of relative market share. Combined with 96.6% stability (county median 90.2%), this reflects a school that families actively chose during a market contraction. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
65 of 1,921 students who enrolled at Palo Alto High this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (3.4% 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.
District financial profile — Palo Alto 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: 85.2%
Federal: 3.3%
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 Palo Alto 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).
Campus Breakdown — 2024
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach Score | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC San Diego → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for Palo Alto High
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 5-year enrollment forecast (currently -1.9%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals