Top Public High Schools in Seattle by Graduation Rate
Seattle Public Schools enrolls roughly 50,000 students across more than a dozen comprehensive and option high schools, and a perennial debate at the school board concerns how widely the district's strongest completion outcomes are distributed. The graduation-rate ranking here surfaces a real answer: the very top is held by an option STEM school in Beacon Hill, Cleveland High School STEM, which converted to a citywide choice school in 2010 and now organizes its curriculum around two academies — Life Sciences and Global Health, and Engineering and Computer Science — with project-based learning supported by the New Tech Network. Cleveland's 97.7 percent rate edges every comprehensive in the city.
The rest of the list reveals the geography of Seattle Public Schools' completion outcomes. Lincoln High School in Wallingford, reopened in fall 2019 after a thirty-eight-year closure following a roughly $100 million renovation, posts 95.9 percent — remarkable for a school that has graduated only a handful of full senior cohorts so far. Roosevelt and West Seattle, both long-standing neighborhood comprehensives, follow at 94 and 93 percent respectively; Roosevelt's program is anchored by the Essentially Ellington-winning jazz department first built up by Waldo King in the early 1970s. Summit Public School: Atlas, a charter middle-and-high program, sits at 94 percent.
The list crosses Seattle's traditional district boundary in several places. Bothell High School, technically in south Snohomish County and operated by Northshore School District, and Inglemoor in Kenmore — both within the Northshore district — post higher rates than several Seattle proper schools. Mercer Island, the sole high school in its single-school district immediately east of Seattle across the I-90 floating bridge, contributes the highest SAT mean here at 1323. Shorewood and Shorecrest, both Shoreline School District schools immediately north of Seattle's city limits, complete the top ten. The list as configured uses a Seattle commuting-shed definition rather than strict city limits.
A pattern worth flagging: with the exception of Mercer Island, every Seattle Public Schools comprehensive that appears in this top ten is north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal — Lincoln, Roosevelt, and West Seattle being the only true SPS entries among traditional comprehensives. Garfield, Franklin, Cleveland's traditional cohort, and Rainier Beach all fall outside the cutoff. The choice schools (Cleveland STEM, Summit Atlas) lead the table because their self-selected option populations produce smaller and more committed senior cohorts; that selection effect is part of why Seattle-region completion-rate rankings often look different from rankings of the same schools by SAT or AP.
Mercer Island leads at 96 percent. Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Ballard sit toward the top of the SPS distribution; Garfield's rate is slightly below its SAT outcomes would suggest, a long-standing pattern in the school's mixed-enrollment building. Shoreline and Northshore comprehensives — Shorewood, Shorecrest, Bothell HS, Inglemoor — fill in the rest of the Seattle-commute-shed picture.
Ranked schools
- 001CLEVELAND HIGH SCHOOL STEMSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING98%
- 002BOTHELL HIGH SCHOOLNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING96%
- 003MERCER ISLAND HIGH SCHOOLMERCER ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING96%
- 004LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING96%
- 005INGLEMOOR HSNORTHSHORE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING95%
- 006ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING94%
- 007SUMMIT PUBLIC SCHOOL: ATLASSUMMIT PUBLIC SCHOOL: ATLAS · KING94%
- 008WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING93%
- 009SHOREWOOD HIGH SCHOOLSHORELINE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING93%
- 010SHORECREST HIGH SCHOOLSHORELINE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING92%
- 011BALLARD HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING91%
- 012GARFIELD HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING91%
- 013INGRAHAM HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING88%
- 014THE CENTER SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING86%
- 015CHIEF SEALTH INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING86%
- 016FRANKLIN HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING84%
- 017RAINIER BEACH HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING84%
- 018NATHAN HALE HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING84%
- 019SUMMIT PUBLIC SCHOOL: SIERRASUMMIT PUBLIC SCHOOL: SIERRA · KING84%
- 020EVERGREEN HIGH SCHOOLHIGHLINE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING78%
- 021NOVA HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING76%
- 022RENTON SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLRENTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING76%
- 023ALAN T. SUGIYAMA HIGH SCHOOLSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING71%
- 024TALLEY HIGH SCHOOLRENTON SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING62%
- 025CASCADE PARENT PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMSEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 · KING57%
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