Saratoga High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Prospect High School → Del Mar High School → Westmont High School → Lynbrook High School → Monta Vista High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-2.1%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,119 | -24 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,073 | -70 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,028 | -115 | $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 Santa Clara County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Saratoga High School is shrinking (-2.4%) but Santa Clara County is shrinking faster (-6.2%), so Saratoga High School is winning roughly 3.8 pp of relative market share. Combined with 98.1% stability (county median 90.2%), this reflects a school that families actively chose during a market contraction. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
22 of 1,174 students who enrolled at Saratoga High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (1.9% 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 5.4 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 — Los Gatos-Saratoga 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: 88.1%
Federal: 2.4%
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 Los Gatos-Saratoga 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).
+40.0 pp above peer median (32.9%) · Ranked #4 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
32.9%
53.3%
72.9%
Higher than 97% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Saratoga High School's UC Reach of 72.9% clears the statewide top-10% cutoff (53.3%) — meaning roughly 72 top-6 UC admits per 100 seniors, well above what most California schools achieve.
Against similar schools, Saratoga High School stands out clearly — the peer-group median is 32.9%.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 30 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Saratoga High School's UC Reach is higher than 97% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Saratoga High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Saratoga · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Saratoga High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #4 of 11): 73% vs. a peer median of 33%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 8 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 2% (329→321 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of -9%.
- ▸In business terms, this is market-share growth during a market contraction. Santa Clara County's senior population shrank 6% over the same window — Saratoga High School only shrank 2%. So Saratoga High School picked up about 4 percentage points of relative share — families chose it over the alternatives even as the overall pool got smaller. That's overperforming the market in a shrinking market.
- ▸At its recent rate (-2.1%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1073 by 2029 — about 70 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 70 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saratoga High School | Public | 1143 | 72.9% | -2% |
| Peer-group median | 32.9% | -9% | ||
| Prospect High School | Public | 1436 | 36.3% | -2% |
| Del Mar High School | Public | 1318 | 10.4% | +22% |
| Westmont High School | Public | 1631 | 28.7% | +12% |
| Lynbrook High School | Public | 1640 | 85.7% | -5% |
| Monta Vista High School | Public | 1588 | 85.5% | -31% |
| Pioneer High School | Public | 1342 | 35.4% | -10% |
| Cupertino High School | Public | 1814 | 77.7% | -13% |
| Willow Glen High School | Public | 1537 | 30.3% | -8% |
| Abraham Lincoln High | Public | 1575 | 17.6% | -17% |
| Oak Grove High School | Public | 1288 | 14.4% | -21% |
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 | 4.03 | 9.8% | 13.0% | -3.3pp | On target |
| UCLA | 4.03 | 8.8% | 9.4% | -0.5pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 4.00 | 15.9% | 19.9% | -3.9pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 4.00 | 35.8% | 32.9% | +2.9pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 4.00 | 18.6% | 26.6% | -8.0pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 4.01 | 21.7% | 33.0% | -11.3pp | Under |
Where Saratoga High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (18.4% actual vs. 22.3% 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 | 215 | 21 | 11 | 9.8% | 6.3% | 52.4% | 4.03 | 4.25 |
| UCLA → Elite | 226 | 20 | 8 | 8.8% | 6.0% | 40.0% | 4.03 | 4.18 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 232 | 37 | 7 | 15.9% | 11.1% | 18.9% | 4.00 | 4.23 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 218 | 78 | 7 | 35.8% | 23.5% | 9.0% | 4.00 | 4.24 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 215 | 40 | 4 | 18.6% | 12.0% | 10.0% | 4.00 | 4.19 |
| UC Davis → | 212 | 46 | 4 | 21.7% | 13.9% | 8.7% | 4.01 | 4.20 |