Merrillville High School
Merrillville · IN · Merrillville Community School Corp · Public
📄 Shareable scorecard →Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Andrean High School → Eagle Park Community School → Gary Career Center → Steel City Academy → River Forest High School → Excel Center - Gary → Hobart High School → Calumet New Tech High School →📋 At a glance
- 📚 6 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 1 calculus classes · 8 physics · 11 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 71th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 66th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 91% (54th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Merrillville High School compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor at the 71th percentile nationally with 6 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyIN students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Andrean High School, Eagle Park Community School, Gary Career Center and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
Follow Merrillville High School
Get an email when Merrillville High School's numbers change — new admissions results, enrollment shifts, test scores. A few updates a year, no spam.
🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
71th percentile nationally
✅ Gifted/talented program
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 · 2020-2166th 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?
54th 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.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ 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.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of +1.8%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,115 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $13,536 per student in district revenue, the 199 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $2,693,664/year in additional funding.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrean High School Merrillville |
Private | 1.1 | 409 | -10.9% |
| Eagle Park Community School Crown Point |
Public | 4.0 | 20 | — |
| Gary Career Center Gary |
Public | 4.3 | — | — |
| Steel City Academy Gary |
Public · charter | 4.8 | 91 | -49.7% |
| River Forest High School Hobart |
Public | 5.1 | 565 | +10.8% |
| Excel Center - Gary Gary |
Public · charter | 5.1 | 125 | +4.2% |
| Hobart High School Hobart |
Public | 5.3 | 1,294 | +2.4% |
| Calumet New Tech High School Gary |
Public | 5.5 | 620 | -0.3% |