The San Francisco Chronicle recently released an interesting tool – a searchable database of admission rates to University of California (UC) schools from California public and private schools. We decided to see what was happening in Oakland, so we’re breaking it down here for all the public schools in the town.
Why include A-G data?
We’re including A-G completion rates for each school as well, because students aren’t even eligible to apply to a UC school if they have not completed their A-G requirements. A school with a low A-G completion rate won’t have many students eligible to apply to UC schools, which lowers its application and acceptance rates. But what about a school with a high A-G rate and a low UC application rate? What is going on there – what are the options students are choosing instead, and why?
What else is going on behind the numbers?
The college application and acceptance data brings up interesting questions on their own: What’s the college-going culture like at schools with low application and/or acceptance numbers? Does the school have the staff available to support students to not only get in their applications – but also helping to explore and think about college life? What about the demographics of students and the challenges they face – how is that impacting these numbers at particular schools? Here are the numbers. We’ll start with schools with a high percentage of applicants (above 50%). We follow up each section with some reflections on the data.
What do you notice about the data?
How is your school doing – and what’s the inside story? We want to hear from you.
Oakland Public Schools with a High Percentage of UC Applicants
| School | A-G Rate | # of seniors | Application Rate | # of seniors admitted | Admission Rate |
| AIMS College Prep High | 99% | 118 | 96% | 88 | 78% |
| Latitude 37.8 High | 92% | 38 | 76% | 14 | 48% |
| MetWest High | 95% | 42 | 67% | 16 | 57% |
| Oakland Military Institute | 60% | 64 | 64% | 24 | 59% |
| Oakland Charter High | 100% | 59 | 63% | 59 | 86% |
| Alternatives in Action | 62% | 33 | 58% | 5 | 26% |
| Oakland School for the Arts | 83% | 111 | 56% | 41 | 66% |
| Oakland Tech | 78% | 478 | 53% | 177 | 70% |
| LIFE Academy | 83% | 60 | 50% | 24 | 80% |
Reflections on the data:
- AIMS College Prep is the only school with an A-G percentage, application percentage and admission percentage over 70 percent in each category: the data shows students are prepared to apply, a high number of students apply, and a lot receive offers of admission.
- More than half of the seniors at Oakland’s largest public high school, Oakland Tech, apply and 7 out of 10 get in.
- Alternatives in Action, an alternative school, is the only Oakland public school with a high percentage of seniors applying (58%) to UC schools but a low admission rate (26%).
- There does seem to be correlation between A-G rates and a high number of applicants: all of the schools with the most applicants have A-G completion rates above 60% – further evidence of why it’s so important that we increase the number of high school students who complete their A-G coursework.
Application Rates for All Other Oakland Public Schools*
| School | A-G Rate | # of seniors | Application Rate | # of seniors admitted | Admission Rate |
| Coliseum College Prep Academy | 89% | 73 | 49% | 32 | 89% |
| East Bay Innovation Academy | 86% | 62 | 47% | 15 | 52% |
| Aspire Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy | 63% | 64 | 36% | 16 | 70% |
| Oakland Unity High | 100% | 83 | 36% | 26 | 87% |
| Envision Academy for Arts & Technology | 100% | 83 | 35% | 21 | 72% |
| Skyline High | 65% | 367 | 34% | 79 | 63% |
| Oakland High | 62% | 384 | 33% | 85 | 68% |
| Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy | 28% | 90 | 29% | 9 | 35% |
| Lighthouse Community Charter High | 83% | 73 | 29% | 15 | 71% |
| McClymonds High | 60% | 65 | 26% | 10 | 59% |
| LPS Oakland R & D Campus | 1% | 114 | 25% | 24 | 86% |
| Madison Park Academy 6-12 | 44% | 90 | 20% | 15 | 83% |
| ARISE High | 99% | 85 | 20% | 8 | 47% |
| Fremont High | 53% | 205 | 19% | 28 | 72% |
| Oakland International High | 79% | 87 | 15% | 10 | 77% |
| Castlemont High | 33% | 187 | 7% | 14 | 86% |
| Independent Study, Sojourner Truth | 32% | 119 | 4% | 5 | 80% |
*Please note not all Oakland public high schools had data available in the Chronicle database.
Reflections on the data:
- About 1/3 of seniors at Oakland’s second largest high school, Skyline, apply to UC schools and ⅔ get in.
- Oakland Unity has a high A-G rate (100%) and acceptance rate (87%), yet a comparatively low application rate (36%).
- Lighthouse Community Charter similarly has a high A-G rate (83%) and acceptance rate (71%) and a lower application rate (29%).
- Just 7% of Castlemont’s 187 seniors applied but 9/10 were admitted.
- We probably should have included Coliseum College Prep in the “high” group: with a 49% application rate, it just missed the cut; however, the school has a strong A-G and admission rates (both 89%).