University High School Charter
Los Angeles · Los Angeles County · Los Angeles Unified · Public
Shareable scorecard →Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
Beverly Hills High School → Fairfax High School → El Segundo High School → Foshay Learning Center → Culver City High School → Compare all similar →A parent's read
- The UC pipeline here is real. 130 admissions to the top six UC campuses for a class of 348 seniors puts this school in roughly the top 20% of California high schools.
- Elite admits are rare — here and everywhere. Berkeley and UCLA admitted 26 of this class's 503 UC applications. The strong middle campuses — San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Davis — are where most real UC outcomes happen.
- Worth asking about: attendance. 32% of students are chronically absent — above the state's ~23%. Ask what the school is doing about engagement; absenteeism is usually the earliest warning light.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
At a glance
- 23 AP courses offered — Elite
- Gifted & talented program
- 4 calculus classes · 3 physics · 8 chemistry
- AP rigor: 86th percentile nationally
- SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 8% by test-taker volume
- 4-yr grad rate: 90% in 2019 (Bottom 49% 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
74.8% 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 77.9% had enrolled — CDE publishes a 16-month window alongside the 12-month one, 226 students.
Down 4.8 points from the 2021-22 class (79.6%).
Where the 2022-23 class enrolled
In California — 197 students (67.9%)
Out of state — 20 students (6.9%)
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 University High School Charter compares for families
Above-average college outcomes statewide.
- ▸ StatewideUC Reach Score of 37 — 18 points above the California median of 19. Ahead of 80% of California high schools.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsRight at the peer median (UC Reach Score 34) across the 5 most similar nearby schools.
For Parents
Get alerts when University High School Charter'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
86th 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 8% 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?
Bottom 49% 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
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.
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 23.5 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 (-2.0%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,274 | -26 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,224 | -76 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,175 | -125 | $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 University High School Charter really compare on getting kids to college?
We've ranked it #4 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
Beverly Hills High School · Fairfax High School · El Segundo High School · Foshay Learning Center · Culver City High School · Alexander Hamilton 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.
Enrollment -20.8% vs. county -5.3% — losing 3.9× the county rate. Each enrolled family matters more, but the engine of new enrollment is breaking down. Chronic absenteeism is also at 32.5% (up +23.5 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
182 of 1,477 students who enrolled at University High School Charter this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (12.3% 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 — Los Angeles 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: 29.8%
Federal: 18.5%
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 Los Angeles 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).
University High School Charter sent 503 applications to the six most selective University of California campuses and 25.8% were admitted, producing a UC Reach Score of 37 (top-6 UC admits per 100 seniors, counting a student at each campus that admitted them) — 18 points above the California median of 19, higher than 80% of California high schools. The school produces 7.5 UCLA + UC Berkeley admits per 100 seniors.
19
34
53
37
Higher than 80% of California high schools (1107 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
University High School Charter's UC Reach Score of 37 is in the top quartile statewide (median 19; top 25% bar 33) — but it's still below the top-10% bar of 53.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 95 — a gap of 58 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, University High School Charter's UC Reach is higher than 80% 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 | 70 | 9 | —† | 12.9% | 3 | — | — | —† |
| UCLA → Elite | 114 | 17 | 12 | 14.9% | 5 | 70.6% | — | —† |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 97 | 31 | 7 | 32.0% | 9 | 22.6% | — | —† |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 61 | 21 | —† | 34.4% | 6 | — | — | —† |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 99 | 25 | 9 | 25.3% | 7 | 36.0% | — | —† |
| UC Davis → | 62 | 27 | 3 | 43.5% | 8 | 11.1% | — | —† |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for University High School Charter
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 (37) ranked head-to-head against your closest competitor schools
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently -2.0%/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