San Clemente High School
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Most similar nearby schools
San Juan Hills High School → Aliso Niguel High School → Capistrano Valley High School → Dana Hills High School → Tesoro High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-1.7%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,584 | -46 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,495 | -135 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,409 | -221 | $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 is shrinking 1.4× the county rate (school -10.0% vs. county -7.1%) with stability (93.4%) near the county median. Two problems compounding — the recruitment side is the higher-leverage starting point.
186 of 2,803 students who enrolled at San Clemente High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (6.6% 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 9.8 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 — Capistrano 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: 56.4%
Federal: 6.4%
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 Capistrano 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).
-13.3 pp vs. peer median (33.0%) · Ranked #9 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
33.0%
53.3%
19.7%
Higher than 54% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
San Clemente High School's UC Reach of 19.7% is above 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.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 83 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, San Clemente High School's UC Reach is higher than 54% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
San Clemente High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · San Clemente · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, San Clemente High School sits near the bottom of its similar-school group (ranked #9 of 11): 20% vs. a peer median of 33%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 4 points since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 10% (701→631 from 2018 to 2026), tracking the peer-group median of -11%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-1.7%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2495 by 2029 — about 135 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 135 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Clemente High School | Public | 2630 | 19.7% | -10% |
| Peer-group median | 33.0% | -11% | ||
| San Juan Hills High School | Public | 2519 | 25.3% | +15% |
| Aliso Niguel High School | Public | 2534 | 34.4% | -7% |
| Capistrano Valley High School | Public | 1980 | 35.5% | -9% |
| Dana Hills High School | Public | 1626 | 19.0% | -31% |
| Tesoro High School | Public | 2013 | 31.5% | -24% |
| Trabuco Hills High School | Public | 2489 | 23.3% | -14% |
| University High | Public | 2365 | 67.3% | -15% |
| Portola High School | Public | 2814 | 67.5% | +56% |
| El Toro High School | Public | 1849 | 10.4% | -25% |
| Arnold O Beckman High School | Public | 2711 | 65.9% | +2% |
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 | 4.10 | 9.1% | 14.6% | -5.5pp | Under |
| UCLA | 4.08 | 10.0% | 9.7% | +0.3pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 4.00 | 21.2% | 19.9% | +1.3pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 4.03 | 36.3% | 34.3% | +2.0pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 3.97 | 22.4% | 25.3% | -2.9pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 4.02 | 49.3% | 33.0% | +16.3pp | Over |
Where San Clemente High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (23.8% actual vs. 22.4% 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 | 88 | 8 | 6 | 9.1% | 1.1% | 75.0% | 4.10 | 4.32 |
| UCLA → Elite | 120 | 12 | 7 | 10.0% | 1.6% | 58.3% | 4.08 | 4.31 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 132 | 28 | 7 | 21.2% | 3.8% | 25.0% | 4.00 | 4.29 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 135 | 49 | 13 | 36.3% | 6.6% | 26.5% | 4.03 | 4.30 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 76 | 17 | — | 22.4% | 2.3% | — | 3.97 | 4.19 |
| UC Davis → | 67 | 33 | 6 | 49.3% | 4.4% | 18.2% | 4.02 | 4.21 |