Madeira High School vs Sycamore High School

Madeira High School and Sycamore High School are separated by just 4.6 miles in Cincinnati, Ohio, yet they offer meaningfully different educational environments. Both schools share an identical overall rating of 9.2/10 and sit within one position of each other in Ohio's state rankings — Madeira at #24 of 3,440 schools and Sycamore at #25 of 3,440 — making this one of the tightest head-to-head comparisons in the region.

The academic and growth scores reveal a real split in what each school does best. Madeira High School leads in academic achievement with a 9.8/10 academic score versus Sycamore High School's 9.3/10 — a half-point gap that reflects a consistent edge in tested proficiency. Sycamore, however, pulls ahead on growth: its 9.4/10 growth score outpaces Madeira's 8.5/10 by nearly a full point, meaning Sycamore students show stronger year-over-year learning gains relative to their starting points. Families weighing raw achievement against demonstrated progress will find a genuine trade-off here.

The two schools differ substantially in scale and demographics. Madeira High School enrolls 442 students against Sycamore High School's 1,677 — nearly four times the population. That size difference carries through to the student-teacher ratio: 13.8:1 at Madeira versus 15.2:1 at Sycamore. Madeira's free and reduced-price lunch rate sits at 8%, compared to Sycamore's 20%, indicating that Sycamore serves a broader socioeconomic range of families — a meaningful equity distinction for parents who value diverse economic exposure.

At the program level, Sycamore High School begins in 8th grade while Madeira High School serves grades 9 through 12 only, which affects how and when students transition into the high school environment. Sycamore's earlier entry point gives families a longer runway within a single building, potentially easing the middle-to-high school transition. Madeira's smaller, purely high school setting offers a more focused four-year experience with tighter class sizes and the highest academic score of the two schools.