Century High School
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Saddleback High School → Tustin High School → Los Amigos High School → Santiago High → Valley High → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-3.4%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,310 | -46 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,224 | -132 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,143 | -213 | $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.
Enrollment stability & demand — 2024-25
Two complementary signals: retention (do students stay once enrolled?) and demand (are families choosing the school?). Read against the Orange County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment growth is beating Orange County (+18.1% vs. -7.1%), but 246 of 1606 students didn't maintain continuous enrollment. Why are families leaving once enrolled? Chronic absenteeism is also at 27.7% (up +19.8 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
246 of 1,606 students who enrolled at Century High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (15.3% 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.
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 19.8 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).
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.
District financial profile — Santa Ana 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: 28.4%
Federal: 15.5%
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 Santa Ana 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).
-8.4 pp vs. peer median (16.6%) · Ranked #10 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
53.3%
8.2%
Higher than 12% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Century High School's UC Reach of 8.2% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
But in Orange County, where the local median is 25.0% and the top-10% bar is 71.2%, this score is mid-pack rather than exceptional — typical of its market rather than a standout.
Overall, Century High School's UC Reach is higher than 12% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Century High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Santa Ana · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Century High School sits near the bottom of its similar-school group (ranked #10 of 11): 8% vs. a peer median of 17%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 5 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 18% (408→482 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of -6%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-3.4%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1224 by 2029 — about 132 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 132 fewer students. At per-student funding of $ per student, that's roughly $0 in annual state funding at risk.
Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423 per ADA) — adjust to your district's actual per-pupil figure. Projection extrapolates the recent annual rate — not a forecast of intent.
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Century High School | Public | 1356 | 8.2% | +18% |
| Peer-group median | 16.6% | -6% | ||
| Saddleback High School | Public | 1407 | 15.1% | -3% |
| Tustin High School | Public | 1520 | 16.2% | -29% |
| Los Amigos High School | Public | 1327 | 17.1% | -21% |
| Santiago High | Public | 1557 | 20.6% | -16% |
| Valley High | Public | 1737 | 14.8% | +4% |
| Costa Mesa High School | Public | 1610 | 14.5% | -8% |
| Legacy Magnet Academy | Public | 988 | 86.8% | +35% |
| Rancho Alamitos High School | Public | 1380 | 20.4% | -17% |
| Orange County School of the Arts | Public | 1915 | 96.2% | +46% |
| Orange High School | Public | 1710 | 6.6% | +8% |
UC Reach = top-6 UC admits ÷ senior class (can exceed 100% when students are admitted to multiple campuses). Enrollment trend = first-to-latest grade-12 change on file. Similar schools matched on proximity, size, type. Methodology →
Admit rate vs. CA peer average, by campus ⓘ
How does this school's admit rate at each UC compare to other CA schools whose applicant pool averages the same GPA?
| Campus | Applicant GPA (avg) | Actual admit rate | CA peer avg | Δ | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | 3.79 | 10.5% | 9.0% | +1.5pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.67 | 40.5% | 29.0% | +11.6pp | Over |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.64 | 66.7% | 28.0% | +38.6pp | Over |
| UC Irvine | 3.63 | 13.6% | 16.7% | -3.1pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 3.59 | 25.0% | 32.7% | -7.7pp | Under |
Where Century High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (24.8% actual vs. 20.2% expected).
UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2025
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 | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 18 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.73 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 38 | 4 | 3 | 10.5% | 0.8% | 75.0% | 3.79 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 37 | 15 | — | 40.5% | 3.0% | — | 3.67 | 4.09 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 15 | 10 | — | 66.7% | 2.0% | — | 3.64 | 3.99 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 59 | 8 | 4 | 13.6% | 1.6% | 50.0% | 3.63 | 4.11 |
| UC Davis → | 16 | 4 | — | 25.0% | 0.8% | — | 3.59 | — |