Rancho Bernardo High School
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Poway High School → Del Norte High School → Westview High School → Mira Mesa High School → Mt Carmel 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) | ~2,233 | -14 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,206 | -41 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,180 | -67 | $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.
Rancho Bernardo High School outperformed San Diego County on enrollment (school +3.8% vs. county -7.8%) AND maintains 94.3% stability. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
130 of 2,263 students who enrolled at Rancho Bernardo High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (5.7% 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 8.2 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).
On the peer median (34.6%) · Ranked #6 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
34.6%
53.3%
34.0%
Higher than 77% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Rancho Bernardo High School's UC Reach of 34.0% is in the top quartile statewide (median 18.5%; top 25% bar 32.0%) — but it's still below the top-10% bar of 53.3%.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 69 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Rancho Bernardo High School's UC Reach is higher than 77% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Rancho Bernardo High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · San Diego · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Rancho Bernardo High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #6 of 11): 34% vs. a peer median of 35%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 5 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 4% (547→568 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of -2%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-0.6%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2206 by 2029 — about 41 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 41 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rancho Bernardo High School | Public | 2247 | 34.0% | +4% |
| Peer-group median | 34.6% | -2% | ||
| Poway High School | Public | 2034 | 28.0% | -9% |
| Del Norte High School | Public | 2514 | 73.6% | +25% |
| Westview High School | Public | 2067 | 74.2% | -9% |
| Mira Mesa High School | Public | 2147 | 22.1% | -0% |
| Mt Carmel High School | Public | 1818 | 22.3% | +2% |
| Scripps Ranch High | Public | 1920 | 42.8% | -3% |
| San Pasqual High School | Public | 1852 | 19.6% | -26% |
| Canyon Crest Academy | Public | 1977 | 92.7% | -5% |
| Torrey Pines High School | Public | 2642 | 41.3% | +5% |
| LA Costa Canyon High School | Public | 1841 | 18.9% | +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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 4.07 | 7.7% | 14.0% | -6.3pp | Under |
| UCLA | 4.03 | 3.5% | 9.4% | -5.9pp | Under |
| UC San Diego | 3.97 | 13.6% | 20.7% | -7.0pp | Under |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.94 | 22.5% | 30.0% | -7.5pp | Under |
| UC Irvine | 3.96 | 57.6% | 24.8% | +32.8pp | Over |
| UC Davis | 3.96 | 28.2% | 32.6% | -4.5pp | On target |
Where Rancho Bernardo High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (22.7% actual vs. 21.7% 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 | 104 | 8 | 6 | 7.7% | 1.5% | 75.0% | 4.07 | 4.23 |
| UCLA → Elite | 142 | 5 | 3 | 3.5% | 0.9% | 60.0% | 4.03 | 4.25 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 169 | 23 | 10 | 13.6% | 4.3% | 43.5% | 3.97 | 4.24 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 138 | 31 | 5 | 22.5% | 5.8% | 16.1% | 3.94 | 4.24 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 151 | 87 | 33 | 57.6% | 16.2% | 37.9% | 3.96 | 4.12 |
| UC Davis → | 103 | 29 | 5 | 28.2% | 5.4% | 17.2% | 3.96 | 4.19 |