Mt Carmel High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Westview High School → Scripps Ranch High → Canyon Crest Academy → Mira Mesa High School → Rancho Bernardo High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-0.6%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,806 | -12 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,783 | -35 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,760 | -58 | $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 San Diego County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Mt Carmel High School outperformed San Diego County on enrollment (school +1.5% vs. county -7.8%) AND maintains 94.8% stability. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
95 of 1,834 students who enrolled at Mt Carmel High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (5.2% 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 4.5 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).
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 — Poway 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: 54.6%
Federal: 6.0%
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 Poway 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).
-15.8 pp vs. peer median (38.1%) · Ranked #8 of 11 similar schools
18.6%
38.1%
53.4%
22.3%
Higher than 58% of California high schools (1142 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Mt Carmel High School's UC Reach of 22.3% is above the California median (18.6%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.4% or higher.
But in San Diego County, where the local median is 24.8% and the top-10% bar is 54.8%, this score is mid-pack rather than exceptional — typical of its market rather than a standout.
Against similar schools, Mt Carmel High School trails the peer-group median (38.1%) — even though it looks strong vs. the state average.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 95.1% — a gap of 73 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Mt Carmel High School's UC Reach is higher than 58% of California high schools (1142 ranked).
Mt Carmel High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · San Diego · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Mt Carmel High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #8 of 11): 22% vs. a peer median of 38%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 5 points since 2019 — worth watching.
- ▸Across the top-6 UC campuses, Mt Carmel High School is admitting at roughly -7 percentage points below what its average applicant GPA (3.989) alone would predict (15% actual vs. 22% expected). That's worth understanding — it can reflect grade inflation that UC sees through, weaker holistic-review materials at the margin, or applicants concentrating at more selective campuses than typical. Not a verdict; a signal.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 2% (468→475 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of -4%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-0.6%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1783 by 2029 — about 35 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 35 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mt Carmel High School | Public | 1818 | 22.3% | +2% |
| Peer-group median | 38.1% | -4% | ||
| Westview High School | Public | 2067 | 74.2% | -9% |
| Scripps Ranch High | Public | 1920 | 42.8% | -3% |
| Canyon Crest Academy | Public | 1977 | 92.7% | -5% |
| Mira Mesa High School | Public | 2147 | 22.1% | -0% |
| Rancho Bernardo High School | Public | 2247 | 34.0% | +4% |
| Poway High School | Public | 2034 | 28.0% | -9% |
| San Pasqual High School | Public | 1852 | 19.6% | -26% |
| LA Costa Canyon High School | Public | 1841 | 18.9% | +8% |
| Del Norte High School | Public | 2514 | 73.6% | +25% |
| San Dieguito Academy | Public | 1723 | 42.2% | -9% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 4.05 | 3.8% | 15.8% | -12.0pp | Under |
| UCLA | 4.04 | 6.7% | 9.3% | -2.6pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.96 | 9.5% | 21.4% | -11.9pp | Under |
| UC Santa Barbara | 4.01 | 23.7% | 32.1% | -8.4pp | Under |
| UC Irvine | 3.96 | 27.9% | 23.5% | +4.4pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 3.93 | 15.2% | 30.7% | -15.5pp | Under |
Where Mt Carmel High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants 7.2 points below what their GPAs predict (15.1% actual vs. 22.2% expected).
UC Outcomes Trend — 2019–2024
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 — 2024
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 78 | 3 | — | 3.8% | 0.6% | — | 4.05 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 120 | 8 | 7 | 6.7% | 1.7% | 87.5% | 4.04 | 4.22 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 147 | 14 | 8 | 9.5% | 3.0% | 57.1% | 3.96 | 4.26 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 118 | 28 | 7 | 23.7% | 6.0% | 25.0% | 4.01 | 4.25 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 129 | 36 | 14 | 27.9% | 7.7% | 38.9% | 3.96 | 4.16 |
| UC Davis → | 99 | 15 | — | 15.2% | 3.2% | — | 3.93 | 4.17 |