San Marcos High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Mission Hills High School → Carlsbad High School → Del Norte High School → Rancho Buena Vista High School → El Camino High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-1.2%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~3,004 | -35 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,934 | -105 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,866 | -173 | $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.
San Marcos High School outperformed San Diego County on enrollment (school +0.4% vs. county -7.8%) AND maintains 93.7% stability. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
198 of 3,155 students who enrolled at San Marcos High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (6.3% 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 13.1 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 — San Marcos 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: 33.8%
Federal: 9.3%
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 San Marcos 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).
-6.2 pp vs. peer median (30.7%) · Ranked #7 of 10 similar schools
18.5%
30.7%
53.3%
24.5%
Higher than 63% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
San Marcos High School's UC Reach of 24.5% is above the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 78 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, San Marcos High School's UC Reach is higher than 63% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
San Marcos High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · San Marcos · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, San Marcos High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #7 of 10): 24% vs. a peer median of 31%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has held roughly steady since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 0% (755→758 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of +4%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-1.2%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2934 by 2029 — about 105 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 105 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 Marcos High School | Public | 3039 | 24.5% | +0% |
| Peer-group median | 30.7% | +4% | ||
| Mission Hills High School | Public | 2764 | 30.7% | +7% |
| Carlsbad High School | Public | 2360 | 26.4% | +2% |
| Del Norte High School | Public | 2514 | 73.6% | +25% |
| Rancho Buena Vista High School | Public | 1842 | 16.0% | -24% |
| El Camino High School | Public | 2309 | 10.4% | -20% |
| Coastal Academy Charter | Public | 2120 | — | +497% |
| LA Costa Canyon High School | Public | 1841 | 18.9% | +8% |
| Torrey Pines High School | Public | 2642 | 41.3% | +5% |
| Rancho Bernardo High School | Public | 2247 | 34.0% | +4% |
| 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 | 7.8% | 13.6% | -5.8pp | Under |
| UCLA | 4.06 | 9.3% | 9.6% | -0.3pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.97 | 23.7% | 20.5% | +3.2pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.99 | 32.1% | 32.1% | 0.0pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 4.01 | 19.2% | 27.0% | -7.8pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 3.98 | 36.9% | 32.7% | +4.2pp | On target |
Where San Marcos High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (21.1% actual vs. 22.2% 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 | 129 | 10 | 9 | 7.8% | 1.3% | 90.0% | 4.05 | 4.26 |
| UCLA → Elite | 161 | 15 | 11 | 9.3% | 1.9% | 73.3% | 4.06 | 4.29 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 190 | 45 | 16 | 23.7% | 5.8% | 35.6% | 3.97 | 4.27 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 162 | 52 | 9 | 32.1% | 6.7% | 17.3% | 3.99 | 4.27 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 156 | 30 | 7 | 19.2% | 3.9% | 23.3% | 4.01 | 4.20 |
| UC Davis → | 103 | 38 | 4 | 36.9% | 4.9% | 10.5% | 3.98 | 4.22 |