Wonderful College Prep Academy
Delano · Kern County · Kern County Office of Education · Public
📄 Shareable scorecard →Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
Robert F Kennedy High School → Cesar E Chavez High School → Delano High School → Wasco High → Mcfarland High School Early College → Compare all similar →🧭 A parent's read
- The UC pipeline here is real. 46 admissions to the top six UC campuses for a class of 135 seniors puts this school in roughly the top 21% of California high schools.
- Families don't leave. 95% of students who start the year here finish it here — top-tier retention statewide. Kids stay; that tells you something no test score does.
- 8 in 10 graduates leave eligible for UC and CSU. 85% 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 4 of this class's 174 UC applications. The strong middle campuses — San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Davis — are where most real UC outcomes happen.
- One question for any counselor: who should still test? Plenty of strong students skip the SAT/ACT now — but merit scholarships at dozens of colleges still key off scores. Ask how the school decides who should still sit for one.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections 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 Wonderful College Prep Academy compares for families
Above-average college outcomes statewide.
- ▸ StatewideUC Reach Score of 34 — 16 points above the California median of 18. Ahead of 79% of California high schools.
- ▸ Locally🎓 Top 3 in Kern County on UC Reach.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsBeats the peer median (UC Reach Score 34 vs a 11 median) across the 5 most similar nearby schools.
For Parents
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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 7.4 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 (+4.7%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,948 | +87 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,134 | +273 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,338 | +477 | $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 Wonderful College Prep Academy really compare on getting kids to college?
We've ranked it #1 of 8 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
Robert F Kennedy High School · Cesar E Chavez High School · Delano High School · Wasco High · Mcfarland High School Early College · Shafter 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 Kern County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Wonderful College Prep Academy outperformed Kern County on enrollment (school +40.4% vs. county +12.7%) AND maintains 94.6% stability. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
32 of 588 students who enrolled at Wonderful College Prep Academy this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (5.4% 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 — Kern County Office of Education (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: 33.7%
Federal: 22.1%
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 Kern County Office of Education 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).
Wonderful College Prep Academy sent 174 applications to the six most selective University of California campuses and 26.4% were admitted, producing a UC Reach Score of 34 — 16 points above the California median of 18, higher than 79% of California high schools. The school produces 3.0 UCLA + UC Berkeley admits per 100 seniors.
+23 pts above peer median (11) · Ranked #1 of 8 similar schools
18
11
51
34
Higher than 79% of California high schools (980 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Wonderful College Prep Academy's UC Reach Score of 34 is in the top quartile statewide (median 18; top 25% bar 31) — but it's still below the top-10% bar of 51.
In Kern County, where the local median is just 10, this score is unusually strong for its immediate market.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 97 — a gap of 63 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Wonderful College Prep Academy's UC Reach is higher than 79% of California high schools (980 ranked).
GPA figures reflect 2024 — UC has not yet released applicant/admit GPA for 2025.
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 | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Irvine | Strong shot | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out |
| UC Davis | Strong shot | Real shot | Moderate | Filtered out |
The numbers behind it
| Campus | Applicant GPA | Admit GPA | Lift ⓘ | Admit rate | vs peer schools @ same GPA ⓘ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 4.00 | 4.16 | +0.16 | 18.5% | Peers +0.22 · wider |
| UCLA (2019) | 3.99 | 4.26 | +0.27 | 31.6% | Peers +0.27 · matches |
| UC San Diego | 3.94 | 4.08 | +0.13 | 42.9% | Peers +0.28 · wider |
| UC Irvine | 3.90 | 4.09 | +0.19 | 480.0% | Peers +0.26 · wider |
| UC Davis | 3.91 | 4.03 | +0.12 | 62.5% | Peers +0.25 · wider |
📊 Statewide CA admit rates by individual GPA band, 2024 (for reference)
| GPA band | UCB | UCLA | UCSD | UCSB | UCI | UCD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.00+ | 17.1% | 14.4% | 43.5% | 57.3% | 46.0% | 64.1% |
| 3.70–3.99 | 2.8% | 1.5% | 11.2% | 9.2% | 16.5% | 27.5% |
| 3.30–3.69 | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.4% | 2.3% | 3.4% | 9.1% |
| 3.00–3.29 | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 2.1% |
| < 3.00 | 0.6% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.6% |
Where Wonderful College Prep Academy sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants 42.7 points above what their GPAs predict (62.5% actual vs. 19.8% expected), based on 2024 data.
UC Outcomes Trend — 2019–2025
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) '24 | Avg GPA (Adm) '24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 23 | 4 | 3 | 17.4% | 3 | 75.0% | 4.00 | 4.16 |
| UCLA → Elite | 29 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.99 | —† |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 13 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.94 | 4.08 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 28 | 7 | —† | 25.0% | 5 | — | 3.95 | —† |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 42 | 19 | 4 | 45.2% | 14 | 21.1% | 3.90 | 4.09 |
| UC Davis → | 39 | 16 | 5 | 41.0% | 12 | 31.2% | 3.91 | 4.03 |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for Wonderful College Prep 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 (34) ranked head-to-head against your closest competitor schools
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently 4.7%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals