Foothill High School: Full Guide

Location: Sacramento, CA

Are you a student or parent at Foothill High School? Want to understand how to get the most out of high school?

We've written the best guide to Foothill High available. Here we'll cover:

Breakdowns of student ethnicity, gender, and family income
How safe Foothill High is to attend
SAT/ACT/AP scores earned by Foothill High students
Which AP/IB classes you can take at Foothill High
Every sports team you can join at Foothill High

Let's get started!

Basic Information

Foothill High School is a public school, supporting grades 9 to 12 . It's located in Sacramento, CA in Sacramento County.

Based on its location, Foothill High is classified as a school in a large suburb. Here's the location on a map:

Contact Information

Mailing address:

Foothill High School
5000 Mccloud Dr.
Sacramento, CA 95842-2815

Phone number: 9165663445

Foothill High School homepage: http://fhs-trusd-ca.schoolloop.com/

Principal: Brian Welborn
Email the principal: [email protected]

Student Demographics

Student Enrollment

The total enrollment at Foothill High School is 1077 students, making it a somewhat large high school, in the top half of all California high schools by size.

As a mid-sized high school, Foothill High strikes the balance between size and comfort. There will be enough students to provide a diversity of experiences, like clubs and sports, for you to join. But it'll be small enough that you'll likely get to know most people in your class.

Growth in Student Body Size

Is Foothill High School growing or shrinking? This will help you see trends in where the school is headed.

From our calculations, the enrollment at Foothill High has increased over the past few years. We calculate this by comparing enrollment in grades 9 to 12.

	Male Students	Female Students	All Students
9^th grade	167	153	320
10^th grade	141	117	258
11^th grade	136	112	248
12^th grade	125	125	250

As you can see in the table above, the freshman class is 70 students larger than the senior class. This suggests that the school is growing in size and taking on more students.

There are a few reasons this could be happening. The city of Sacramento could be growing in population, thus sending more students into Foothill High. Alternatively, Foothill High could be relaxing its student policies and taking in more students.

Gender Split

Are there more boys or girls at Foothill High School?

From our statistics, Foothill High has a 53:47 split between male and female students in the high school grades.

Foothill High has a balanced male-female ratio that's largely representative of the general population in Sacramento County. Since the student body is roughly half and half, it should feel like there are equal numbers of boys and girls in your classes.

This usually means that Foothill High doesn't strongly select for either males or females, unlike other schools that have a large majority of males or females.

Ethnicity Breakdown

What's the racial diversity at Foothill High School? Does one ethnicity make up most of the student body, or is it fairly balanced?

From our statistics, Foothill High has a diverse student body. No single ethnicity composes more than 50% of all students, which means you'll be surrounded by a diverse set of students in class. Only a third of California schools show this much diversity.

The most common ethnicity at Foothill High is Hispanic. In California, 51.5% of all students are Hispanic, making it the most common ethnicity. Even though Foothill High is relatively diverse, students of Hispanic descent are the most common ethnicity here.

	Percentage	Number
American Indian/Alaska Native	1.1%	12
Asian	7.7%	84
Hispanic	34.7%	374
Black	17.5%	189
White	32.2%	347
Hawaiian Native/Pacific Islander	2.0%	22
Two or more races	4.5%	49

High schools usually reflect the population in the surrounding area, so the ethnicities of students likely resembles those of Sacramento. If you'd like to see how other nearby schools look in diversity, just google "[name of school] prepscholar" to find our guide to that specific school.

Income Level of Foothill High Families

What are the family incomes of students at Foothill High School? To determine this, we look at the number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunches, a classification by the US federal government.

To qualify for a reduced price meal, family income needs to be below 185% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a family of 4, this means an income of around $45,000 or below.

To qualify for a free meal, family income needs to be below 130% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a family of 4, this means an income of around $32,000 or below.

The lower the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced price meals, the higher the income levels are likely to be.

At Foothill High, 7.8% of students qualify for reduced-price lunches, and 72.5% qualify for free lunches.

This means Foothill High has a high percentage of students at or near poverty. Almost a third of all schools in California show this level of poverty, and by National Center for Education Statistics standards, Foothill High can be classified as a high poverty school. The income level of families in Sacramento is thus likely to be low.

	Number	Percent
Reduced-price lunches	85	7.8%
Free lunches	781	72.5%
Do not qualify for reduced-price or free lunches	211	19.5%

As with ethnicity, this likely reflects the surrounding community in Sacramento and doesn't speak much about the school itself.

Unfortunately, schools in areas of lower income levels are likely to be more poorly funded. As a result, they might feature less advanced coursework like AP/IB classes, and you may not have a full range of sports and extracurriculars to draw from. Because Foothill High is an especially high poverty-level school, it might not have the resources you need to meet your full potential.

You definitely don't have control over the city, the school, or other families, but you can structure your own learning to be more productive. If you'd like to open yourself to more opportunities, you can look into whether it's possible to transfer to a nearby school with higher income levels.

If not, don't be alarmed - it's possible that Foothill High has all that you need for your ambition. And you can definitely be proactive about learning outside of your school, looking to your community or to the Internet to find more resources.

Exclusive: Want to learn how to improve your SAT score by 160 points? image description

Download our free guide on the top 5 strategies you must be using to improve your score. This guide was written by Harvard graduates and SAT perfect scorers. If you apply the strategies in this guide, you'll study smarter and make huge score improvements.

School Safety

How safe is Foothill High School to attend? Can you expect a lot of conflict as a student here?

To study this, we look at disciplinary data for two types of incidents at Foothill High: referrals to law enforcement (when incidents are reported to police), and arrests.

These are the most serious disciplinary actions available to school administration and are more severe than suspensions or expulsions. Suspensions are often discretionary and can be given just for being disruptive in class. In contrast, law enforcement referrals and arrests often indicate incidents that put the safety of other Foothill High students at risk.

In the school year of 2011-2012, there were 62 referrals to law enforcement (35 male, 27 female), and 6 school-related arrests (2 males, 4 females). This is out of a total enrollment of 353 students.

To put this into perspective, most California schools (59% of them) reported 0 law enforcement referrals and arrests.

This means that 19.2 Foothill High has major safety issues. For every 100 students, there were 19.2 law-enforcement related actions. This is a very high number that puts Foothill High in the top 10% of schools with disciplinary actions.

With this record, is Foothill High School significantly different from other schools in the area? It could be that Foothill High has an especially bad record, or it could be that the local area shows a pattern.

Compare this school with other high schools in the same school district, using the following table:

Twin Rivers Unified School District Safety

School Name	Total Referred	Enrollment
Grant Union High	0	2026
Highlands High	61	880
Rio Linda High	0	1843
Elwood J. Keema High	2	730
Pacific Career And Technology High	0	131
Miles P. Richmond	0	42

Academic Performance

Now we get to a major aspect of assessing a high school: academic performance. How good of an education will you get at Foothill High School? Will you be competitive for college? Will you have access to advanced classes?

We've compiled everything we could find about Foothill High's academics here.

Graduation Rate

To start off, an important benchmark of academic achievement is graduation rate. For all students who start high school at Foothill High, the state of California wants as many students to graduate as possible, since a high school diploma can mean a big difference in getting a job.

At Foothill High, 78% (of 249) Foothill High students graduated within four years of starting high school.

Here's how this stacks up to other schools. The California state government has defined 90% as a target rate. The state average is around 80-85%.

Foothill High is in the 41st percentile of all public high schools in California for graduation rate. This is below average. Generally, a graduation rate of above 90% is considered good and well above average, and below 75% is well below average.

Note: This data comes from a few years back, but the trends are likely to stay the same, since schools don't get significantly better or worse within a short period of time.

Standardized Testing

Next, we'll look at another major piece of high school academics: standardized testing performance for Foothill High School students. These are tests that are administered to large populations of students for comparison purposes.

Let’s start by taking a look at the data for nationally administered standardized tests.

SAT Scores

As you probably know, the SAT is a critical test used for college admissions. The higher the score you get, the better your academic performance compared to students nationwide, and the easier it is to get into top colleges.

We did in-depth research and found the average Foothill High School SAT scores.

The average composite SAT score is a 1350 out of 2400, compared to a national average of 1500. Each year, roughly 117 at Foothill High take the SAT.

This is a below-average SAT score, putting Foothill High School in the bottom 50% of all California schools. Only 28% of students here score the national average or higher. Because the SAT measures academic achievement, this suggests that Foothill High may offer a somewhat lacking high school education, compared to schools with higher SAT averages.

Note, however, that an average is just an average - top performers will still be able to impress. If you work hard and get an SAT score well above Foothill High's average, you'll have a great shot at entering a good college.

Here's a breakdown of SAT scores by section:

Average SAT Scores (2013-2014)

Source	Critical Reading	Math	Writing	Composite
Foothill High	460	452	438	1350
California	498	510	496	1504
United States	495	511	484	1490

Note that the SAT has since changed to a 1600 scale, but the trends above for your high school are likely to continue. Just use this guide to convert between the old 2400 scale and the new 1600 scale.

To learn more about SAT percentile rankings, read our guide on what SAT percentiles really mean.

How good is 1350 as an SAT score? Find out with our complete 1350 SAT score guide, including which colleges you can get into with a 1350 or any other SAT score!

Exclusive: Want to learn how to improve your SAT score by 160 points? image description

ACT Scores

In California, the ACT is less popular than the SAT. Fewer students take the ACT, and typically these students are more motivated and academically prepared for college. Therefore, it's harder to compare Foothill High School ACT scores with the rest of the country.

At Foothill High, the average ACT composite score was 20, compared to the nationwide average of 20. Each year, roughly 16 out of 1076 total students take the ACT.

This is below average performance, putting Foothill High in the bottom 50% of California high schools. Most students who take the ACT are below the national average.

Since the ACT tests what you learn in school, this is a pretty strong indicator that you'll get an average or below average education at Foothill High.

Here are the average English, Math, Reading, and Science scores for Foothill High compared to California and the US:

Average ACT Scores

Source	English	Math	Reading	Science
Foothill High	19	21	21	19
California	21.8	22.8	22.3	21.7
United States	20.3	20.9	21.3	20.8

Scores provided are for the 2013-14 school year.

Find out more about percentile rankings and the ACT in this article.

Every individual is different. What counts as a good ACT score for you? Learn more with this article!

Exclusive: Want to learn how to improve your ACT score by 4 points? image description

Download our free guide on the top 5 strategies you must be using to improve your score. This guide was written by Harvard graduates and ACT perfect scorers. If you apply the strategies in this guide, you'll study smarter and make huge score improvements.

Free eBook: 5 Tips to 4+ Points on the ACT

Advanced Placement (AP)

Advanced Placement (AP) classes are college-level courses that are an additional academic challenge may give Foothill High School students credit for college.

Here's what we're looking for: high average AP test scores as well as high AP passing rates.

AP Scores

Every year, roughly 58 students in grades 9-12 at Foothill High take 97 AP exams. It's important to understand how students score on the AP - earning a 3, 4, or 5 on the AP test means passing the test and often earning college credit.

The average score of all AP exams taken at Foothill High is 2.0 out of 5.

Compared to schools across California, this score puts Foothill High at below average performance. On AP tests, the passing score is considered a 3, and unfortunately the number of students who don't pass is greater than the number of do. This performance places Foothill High School in the bottom 25 % of schools for AP tests.

This isn't all bad news for you, though. It's still good that Foothill High offers AP classes so you have the opportunity to take courses at a college level. Your school might be new to offering AP courses, and typically teachers get better at preparing students for AP tests over time. Finally, as you'll see below, there are still students who earn a passing grade of 3 or above - and with hard work, you can be one of them.

We have specific data on how many students got a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (out of 5) on AP exams in the chart below:

AP Test-Taking Statistics

Another way to gauge the quality of a school's AP program is to see how many AP students actually took AP exams at Foothill High School. If a lot of students enroll in AP courses but don't actually take the AP tests, it can be a sign that students don't feel adequately prepared to take the test, or the school isn't encouraging students to take the exams enough.

At Foothill High, there is a total enrollment of 110 in AP courses (a student taking more than one AP course counts more than once).

Of AP-taking students, 38 took AP tests for ALL AP courses. 29 students took AP tests for SOME AP Courses, and 29 took AP courses but took NO tests.

This is good test participation. Most students at Foothill High School are taking some or all AP exams available to them, and only a minority of students end up taking zero AP tests. This means most students feel well enough prepared to take the nationwide AP tests for their courses.

There's still some room for improvement. Foothill High could reduce the number of AP students who take zero AP exams, and encourage students to take all AP exams available to them. Some students may not feel confident that they'll pass, so they choose not to take the test. By building a better AP program Foothill High could improve their AP exam participation.

Note: The most recent data we have available is from 2012, so the statistics may have changed since then. Most likely, however, the trends are likely to continue - above average schools are likely to stay above average, and below average schools are likely to stay below average.

AP Passing Rates

For AP students at Foothill High School who take the exam, it's important to know how they do. Here we have specific data on how many students got a passing grade (a 3 or above) on all, some, or none of the AP exams that they took.

Of all AP test takers, 0 students passed every AP test they took, which is a fantastic job. 8 students passed some but not all AP exams, and 43 students didn't pass ANY AP exam they took.

To find out the passing rates for specific AP courses at Foothill High School, you'll have to talk to your guidance counselor (who can then help you find that information). For instance, one AP Calculus teacher may have an above-90% passing rate, while another might only have a 50% passing rate. If you can, you'll want to take the class with the teacher who has more students get a 3 or above on the AP exam.

Find out more about the average score for each AP subject here.

State Tests

As of 2014, eleventh graders attending Foothill High School must take standardized tests in English/Language Arts and Math as part of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). These align with the new Common Core standards and are called the "Smarter Balanced" tests.

If Foothill High students meet or exceed state standards, they're academically prepared to graduate high school and go to college. Specifically, we care about the percentage of students who meet or exceed state standards. The larger this number, the higher the preparation of students at Foothill High.

English/Language Arts

At Foothill High School, 36% of students meet or exceed state standards in English/Language Arts.

This is considered below average and puts Foothill High in the bottom 50% of all high schools in California for English/Language Arts. The majority of Foothill High students do not pass state standards, and only a small percentage pass.

This specific percentage isn't much cause for concern - because the Common Core is new, the pass rate at Foothill High will likely rise over time. But it still reflects Foothill High's below average standing among California high schools.

English/Language Arts Test Results (2015)

Read more about what’s measured in each ELA area score here.

Math

The other major test taken for state assessments is Math. Across the state, Math performance is generally lower than English/Language Arts performance, so it's natural for this number to be lower.

At Foothill High School, 13% of students meet or exceed state standards in Math. This is considered well below average and puts Foothill High in the bottom 25% of all high schools in California. The vast majority of Foothill High students don't meet state standards, and only a small percentage pass.

Math Test Results (2015)

Read more about what’s measured in each Math area score, go here.

Academic Offerings

In addition to the standard high school curriculum, many high schools like Foothill High School offer advanced coursework as part of the Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs.

Brief Intro to AP/IB

AP and IB courses are designed at the difficulty level of college introductory classes. There are several important benefits to taking advanced coursework at Foothill High. First, taking more advanced classes shows colleges that you're committed to challenging yourself academically, and that you're one of the more advanced students at Foothill High. Taking AP/IB classes also raises your weighted GPA and makes you a stronger college applicant.

Furthermore, many colleges will accept your Foothill High AP/IB coursework as college coursework. In some cases, you'll be able to skip introductory-level classes and move to more advanced classes. In other cases, you'll be able to avoid having to take required courses and might even be able to graduate earlier than the standard 4 years. Often this will require you to pass the AP test, getting a score of 3 or above.

So what advanced courses does Foothill High School offer?

AP Courses

Foothill High School offers AP courses in 10 subjects.

This is a reasonable number of AP subjects, putting Foothill High School in the top 50% of California schools that offer AP courses. You'll likely have access to some of the most popular math and humanities AP subjects, as well as a few others.

The total number of AP subjects is 38, so Foothill High is missing a large number of subjects, including some popular ones. If there are any AP courses you want to take that aren't being offered at Foothill High, ask your counselor for ideas on how to cover the gap.

Of course, keep in mind that quality matters even more than quantity - even if Foothill High doesn't offer every AP course under the sun, the classes might still be taught very well. You can see student performance in the AP score analysis section above.

The following AP courses were offered at Foothill High during 2015-2016:

Course Title
Calculus AB
English Language and Composition
English Literature and Composition
European History
Macroeconomics
Music Theory
Spanish Language and Culture
Statistics
United States Government and Politics
United States History

Sports Teams

Finally, we'll cover which sports teams are available at Foothill High School. Sports are an integral part of many students' high school experiences. The more sports that are available, and the more levels supported (Frosh, JV, Varsity), the more likely you'll be able to participate in a sport at Foothill High.

By the way, the Foothill High mascot is the Mustangs. Go Mustangs!

Foothill High School fields 19 teams for girls' sports. This is a high number that puts Foothill High in the top 25% of California schools that offer girls' sports. If you're a female, you'll have lots of options of sports and levels to try out for.

And now for the boys: Foothill High School fields 22 teams for boys' sports. This puts Foothill High in the top 25% of California schools that offer boys' sports. Boys will have a large pick of sports to try out for.

Boys Teams	Girls Teams
Lacrosse Var JV Fr	Lacrosse Var JV Fr
Basketball Var JV Fr	Basketball Var JV Fr
Golf Var JV Fr	Golf Var JV Fr
Tennis Var JV Fr	Tennis Var JV Fr
Football Var JV Fr
Wrestling Var JV Fr
Volleyball Var JV Fr	Volleyball Var JV Fr
Baseball Var JV Fr
	Softball Var JV Fr
Waterpolo Var JV Fr	Waterpolo Var JV Fr
Trackfield Var JV Fr	Trackfield Var JV Fr
Crosscountry Var JV Fr	Crosscountry Var JV Fr
Soccer Var JV Fr	Soccer Var JV Fr

What’s Next?

Want to get more useful information about high school classes and preparing for colleges? Our blog has a ton of articles and advice on topics ranging from coursework and GPA to letters of recommendation, extracurriculars, and much more!

Ready to bulk up your schedule and maximize your college preparedness? Read all about the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs.

Not quite in high school yet, but eager to get started? We've also got information for younger students interested in advanced learning opportunities, both in and out of school.

If You Liked Our Advice...

Visit our blog for free strategy guides on college admissions and test prep.

Our experts have written hundreds of useful articles on improving your SAT score and getting into college. You'll definitely find something useful here.

Visit our blog now.

Subscribe to our newsletter to get FREE strategies and guides sent to your email. Learn how to ace the SAT/ACT and get into college, with exclusive tips and insights that we share with our private newsletter subscribers.

Get Free SAT Tips to Boost Your Score

You should definitely follow us on social media. You'll get updates on our latest articles right on your feed. Follow us on all of our social networks:

Follow @PrepScholar