San Mateo High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Burlingame High School → Hillsdale High School → Aragon High School → Mills High School → Sequoia High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-1.0%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,516 | -16 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,485 | -47 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,454 | -78 | $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 Mateo County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment -16.9% vs. county -5.3% AND stability (90.2%) below the county median. Recruitment and retention both under pressure — likely a foundational rather than tactical problem.
160 of 1,640 students who enrolled at San Mateo High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (9.8% 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 8.8 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 — San Mateo Union High (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: 85.0%
Federal: 3.6%
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 Mateo Union High 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).
+1.1 pp above peer median (31.9%) · Ranked #5 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
31.9%
53.3%
33.0%
Higher than 76% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
San Mateo High School's UC Reach of 33.0% 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 70 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, San Mateo High School's UC Reach is higher than 76% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
San Mateo High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · San Mateo · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, San Mateo High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 11): 33% vs. a peer median of 32%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 2 points since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 17% (415→345 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -1%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-1.0%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1485 by 2029 — about 47 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 47 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 Mateo High School | Public | 1532 | 33.0% | -17% |
| Peer-group median | 31.9% | -1% | ||
| Burlingame High School | Public | 1627 | 44.7% | +18% |
| Hillsdale High School | Public | 1517 | 32.1% | +12% |
| Aragon High School | Public | 1654 | 53.7% | +14% |
| Mills High School | Public | 1120 | 59.3% | -16% |
| Sequoia High School | Public | 1839 | 21.3% | -5% |
| South San Francisco Hs | Public | 1224 | 14.5% | -26% |
| Capuchino High School | Public | 1086 | 14.2% | -1% |
| Woodside High School | Public | 1694 | 31.7% | -2% |
| Arroyo High | Public | 1463 | 29.8% | -14% |
| Carlmont High School | Public | 2385 | 54.1% | +4% |
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 | 3.96 | 13.6% | 12.1% | +1.5pp | On target |
| UCLA | 3.99 | 8.7% | 9.2% | -0.5pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.95 | 12.9% | 21.0% | -8.1pp | Under |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.93 | 23.9% | 29.4% | -5.5pp | Under |
| UC Irvine | 3.97 | 16.0% | 25.1% | -9.2pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 3.95 | 24.6% | 32.5% | -7.9pp | Under |
Where San Mateo High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (16.7% actual vs. 21.6% 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 | 132 | 18 | 10 | 13.6% | 4.6% | 55.6% | 3.96 | 4.24 |
| UCLA → Elite | 126 | 11 | 4 | 8.7% | 2.8% | 36.4% | 3.99 | 4.28 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 132 | 17 | — | 12.9% | 4.3% | — | 3.95 | 4.25 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 134 | 32 | 7 | 23.9% | 8.1% | 21.9% | 3.93 | 4.23 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 119 | 19 | 3 | 16.0% | 4.8% | 15.8% | 3.97 | 4.16 |
| UC Davis → | 134 | 33 | 6 | 24.6% | 8.4% | 18.2% | 3.95 | 4.21 |