Top Public High Schools in Tacoma / Pierce County by SAT Mean
Pierce County's SAT leaderboard is more compressed than its Seattle and Eastside counterparts, with no public school in the county exceeding 1230 — a gap of roughly 170 points to Lake Washington's Tesla STEM. The top of the list runs through three district clusters: University Place, the Gig Harbor peninsula, and the Puyallup and Sumner valleys, with Steilacoom and Fife filling out the lower half.
Curtis Senior High School in University Place leads at 1229 and pairs that with a 96.2 percent graduation rate and a 76 percent AP pass rate. Curtis's College Success Awards from College Board for three of the past four reporting years reflect a deliberate dual-credit strategy with Bates, Clover Park, and Pierce College. Gig Harbor High School (1217) and Peninsula High School (1188), both in the Peninsula School District across the Tacoma Narrows, take second and third — the only mid-list rural-feeling comprehensives in the top three. Gig Harbor's 82.6 percent AP pass rate is the strongest of any Pierce County comprehensive on this list.
Sumner High School in the Sumner-Bonney Lake district (1168) and Steilacoom High in the small Steilacoom Historical district (1154) follow. Steilacoom serves a substantially military-connected community drawing from JBLM and posts a strong 75 percent AP pass rate despite its size. Puyallup High School (1137), the original Puyallup district comprehensive on Pioneer Way, sits sixth. Kent-Meridian High School in Kent — included here because the Kent School District's southernmost attendance areas reach into Pierce County's commuting shed — comes in seventh. Fife (1113), Emerald Ridge in Puyallup (1089), and Graham Kapowsin in the Bethel district (1085) round out the top ten.
The absence of any urban Tacoma Public Schools comprehensive from the top ten is itself the most striking feature of the list. Stadium, Wilson, and Lincoln — Tacoma's three largest comprehensives — all post SAT means below 1100, and Lincoln's 864 is a significant outlier on the low side. The contrast with Curtis just across the Narrows Bridge in University Place captures the steep household-income gradient between the two attendance areas.
Curtis Senior in University Place leads Pierce County by a clear margin, reflecting the district's compact high-income attendance area and the legacy of University Place SD's small-district investment in college-prep tracks. Gig Harbor and Peninsula HS round out the Peninsula / Gig Harbor cluster; the Tacoma SPS comprehensives sit further down the list, with Stadium HS as the highest-scoring TPS campus.
Ranked schools
- 001CURTIS SENIOR HIGHUNIVERSITY PLACE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1229
- 002GIG HARBOR HIGHPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1217
- 003PENINSULA HIGH SCHOOLPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1188
- 004SUMNER HIGH SCHOOLSUMNER-BONNEY LAKE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1168
- 005STEILACOOM HIGHSTEILACOOM HIST. SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1154
- 006PUYALLUP HIGH SCHOOLPUYALLUP SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1137
- 007KENT-MERIDIAN HIGH SCHOOLKENT SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING1128
- 008FIFE HIGH SCHOOLFIFE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1113
- 009EMERALD RIDGE HIGH SCHOOLPUYALLUP SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1089
- 010GRAHAM KAPOWSIN HIGH SCHOOLBETHEL SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1085
- 011BETHEL HIGH SCHOOLBETHEL SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1078
- 012LAKES HIGH SCHOOLCLOVER PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE1012
- 013STADIUM HIGH SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE991
- 014SPANAWAY LAKE HIGH SCHOOLBETHEL SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE982
- 015FRANKLIN PIERCE HIGH SCHOOLFRANKLIN PIERCE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE978
- 016AUBURN RIVERSIDE HIGH SCHOOLAUBURN SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING947
- 017MOUNT RAINIER HIGH SCHOOLHIGHLINE SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING921
- 018CLOVER PARK HIGH SCHOOLCLOVER PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE914
- 019TACOMA SCHOOL OF THE ARTSTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE904
- 020TACOMA ONLINE HIGH SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE896
- 021DECATUR HIGH SCHOOLFEDERAL WAY SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING880
- 022LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE864
- 023THOMAS JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOLFEDERAL WAY SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING858
- 024TODD BEAMER HIGH SCHOOLFEDERAL WAY SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING849
- 025AUBURN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLAUBURN SCHOOL DISTRICT · KING843
All rankings · Live map