Washington has had Running Start — the state program that lets juniors and seniors take community-college classes on the state's dime — since 1990. Combined with AP, IB, College in the High School, and CTE dual credit, the result is that most Washington public-school graduates leave with at least some college credit already earned.
OSPI tracks this as a single "dual-credit participation" rate: the share of a school's senior class earning college credit through any of those paths. The statewide median is 62%.
| Nikola Tesla STEM HS (Redmond) | 99.5% | |
| Edmonds-Woodway HS | 98.9% | |
| Lynnwood HS | 98.4% | |
| Meadowdale HS (Lynnwood) | 98.3% | |
| Interlake HS (Bellevue) | 94.9% | |
| Lindbergh HS (Renton) | 94.5% | |
| Foss HS (Tacoma) | 94.4% | |
| Stadium HS (Tacoma) | 94.1% | |
| Newport HS (Bellevue) | 93.3% | |
| Cashmere HS | 92.9% | |
| Lake Washington HS (Kirkland) | 92.8% | |
| Bellevue HS | 92.2% | |
| Yelm HS | 91.0% | |
| Renton HS | 90.7% | |
| Emerald Ridge HS (Puyallup) | 90.6% |
OSPI Washington State Report Card. "Dual credit" combines Running Start, College in the High School, AP, IB, and CTE dual credit. Where OSPI didn't separately report a senior-cohort count for the school (Nikola Tesla STEM and a handful of others), the dual-credit rate itself is OSPI's published figure; we list it because it's what the agency reports. A few smaller option/alternative schools (Bellevue Big Picture, Vancouver iTech Prep, CAM Academy, Onalaska HS, Steilacoom HS) would otherwise sit in this top 15 but use the dual-credit metric over a non-comparable cohort and are not shown.
District clusters
The pattern is district-driven more than school-driven. Three of Edmonds SD's four comprehensive high schools — Edmonds-Woodway, Lynnwood, and Meadowdale — sit at 98%+ (Mountlake Terrace, the fourth, is at 79%, the one notable exception in the district). Bellevue SD has Interlake, Newport, and Bellevue HS all at 92% or higher. Tacoma SD's Foss and Stadium are both in the top 10. The shape of those clusters strongly suggests district-level program decisions rather than individual school effects.
Why the headline number matters
Each Running Start credit a Washington student earns is one fewer credit the family pays for in college. The schools at the top of this list aren't just sending more kids to college — they're sending them with months or full semesters of credit already paid for. That's a real, measurable dollar value, on top of whatever the academic value is.