Alexander Hamilton Senior High vs Abraham Lincoln Senior High

Abraham Lincoln Senior High outranks Alexander Hamilton Senior High by a wide margin within California: Lincoln sits at #165 of 9,533 California schools while Hamilton ranks #814 of the same pool — a gap of 649 positions statewide. The overall rating differential, 9.2/10 for Lincoln versus 8.5/10 for Hamilton, understates how far apart these two Los Angeles high schools land in the state distribution. Both serve grades 9 through 12 and sit 11 miles apart, yet their performance profiles diverge sharply.

The academic and growth scores drive that gap. Abraham Lincoln Senior High holds a 9.2/10 academic score compared to Alexander Hamilton Senior High's 7.7/10 — a 1.5-point difference. The growth gap is even more pronounced: Lincoln earns a perfect 10.0/10 growth score against Hamilton's 8.2/10. That growth figure is particularly meaningful because it measures how much students improve relative to academic peers, not just where they start. Lincoln students are outpacing comparable peers at a top-decile rate across California.

The two schools serve meaningfully different populations at different scales. Alexander Hamilton Senior High enrolls 2,107 students versus Abraham Lincoln Senior High's 942 — more than double the headcount. Hamilton's student-teacher ratio is 17.1:1 compared to Lincoln's 15.7:1, giving Lincoln students marginally more instructor access per capita. On economic need, Lincoln's free and reduced lunch rate is 86% versus Hamilton's 73%, meaning Lincoln serves a higher-poverty population yet still produces stronger academic and growth outcomes — a signal of institutional effectiveness rather than demographic advantage.

Both schools are comprehensive public high schools covering grades 9 through 12 in Los Angeles Unified. Neither school's data indicates specialized magnet programs or alternative grade configurations within this dataset, so the comparison rests squarely on performance outcomes, school size, and student demographics. Families weighing these two schools 11 miles apart are choosing between a large, mid-ranked campus and a smaller school that ranks among California's top 2 percent despite serving one of its most economically challenged student bodies.