Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Riverside School → Fusion Academy Newton → Wellesley Sr High → Noble And Greenough School → Newton South High → Dana Hall School → Catholic Memorial → Ursuline Academy →📋 At a glance
- 📚 19 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 15 calculus classes · 28 physics · 25 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 92th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 99% (Top 0.7% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Needham High compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 19 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyMA students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+14 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Riverside School, Fusion Academy Newton, Wellesley Sr High and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 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 · 2020-2192th 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?
Top 0.7% 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.
👩🏫 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.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: A low chronic-absence rate is the cleanest school-level signal of strong family connection, classroom culture, and student engagement — all upstream drivers of enrollment stability. 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 -0.7%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,633 students:
≈ 58 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $26,326 per student in district revenue, the 58 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $1,526,908/year in funding at risk.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riverside School Needham |
Private | 1.3 | 4 | — |
| Fusion Academy Newton Newton |
Private | 1.6 | 61 | — |
| Wellesley Sr High Wellesley |
Public | 2.7 | 1,256 | -10.0% |
| Noble And Greenough School Dedham |
Private | 2.9 | 621 | +1.5% |
| Newton South High Newton Centre |
Public | 3.0 | 1,893 | +3.1% |
| Dana Hall School Wellesley |
Private | 3.0 | 483 | — |
| Catholic Memorial West Roxbury |
Private | 3.4 | 627 | -2.3% |
| Ursuline Academy Dedham |
Private | 3.7 | 369 | -14.6% |