When families talk about Burlingame High School, they usually start with reputation: high-achieving students, community resources, strong academics, and a culture where “everyone is college-bound.”
But what admissions officers see is more nuanced—and far more specific. They’re not evaluating BHS based on Niche or U.S. News. They’re evaluating you against what your school makes possible, using the BHS school profile as their guide. And at BHS, where there are tons of APs, rigor is plentiful, and the GPA distribution is top-heavy, admissions officers know exactly how to calibrate performance.
Coming from a strong public school helps, but it alone does not make you stand out. The distinguishing factor is the strategy you use to show how you’ve thrived within its context.
On paper, BHS looks excellent—and it is.
Niche ranks BHS:
These numbers are helpful if you’re deciding where to move or whether to attend public or private school, but they aren’t what admissions officers use when evaluating your application.
For that, they use your school profile.
The school profile is the most important document colleges use to interpret academic performance. Here’s what stands out from the 2025–26 BHS School Profile:
This GPA distribution alone tells admissions offices one thing: the BHS weighted GPA distribution is inflated at the top end with almost half of the student body having at least a 4.0 and over half having a 3.5 or greater.
This is why strategy matters so much at a school like BHS.
Colleges read applications by school group, which refers to every BHS applicant in one stack, sorted by GPA and rigor. This is standard practice across selective admissions, and the application reading process looks something like this:
Among this school group, AOs compare the weighted GPA, number of AP/Honors courses, GPA and course trends over time, and whether the student took the most rigorous path available.
Admissions officers often look to historical application data to get a sense of how this year’s cohort compares to cohorts from previous years. They might look into how many BHS students applied in previous years, how many were admitted, what their transcripts looked like, and how this year's applicants stack up against prior top performers.
At a school where over half of students have a 3.5 - 4.0+ GPA, there’s a high bar for academic distinction.
Once you clear the academic threshold, the qualitative elements matter most. These come together to make up your “personal score”, which includes the “softer” elements of your application, like your essays, extracurriculars, and letters of recommendation. Admissions officers will want to see a cohesive application narrative, extracurricular impact relative to opportunity, and personal insight and authenticity. Each of these pieces makes it easier for an admissions officer to advocate for you in committee discussions.
This is where strategy can move the needle for you at a school like Burlingame.
The University of California releases admissions data for high schools. Typically colleges don’t release information this detailed, so this is a hugely helpful resource for evaluating where you stand at your school in relation to UC admissions. We’ll start by looking at Burlingame’s admit data for UC Berkeley.
As you can see, 162 Burlingame students applied to Berkeley. Of those, 37 were admitted, and 22 chose to enroll.
That’s an admit rate of about 13.6%, which is slightly higher than UC Berkeley’s overall 11–12% admit rate. To be competitive for Berkeley admissions, then, you’ll probably want to sit around the top 10% of your class. And since Burlingame doesn’t rank, you’ll want to look at your weighted GPA and UC GPA. As we can see in the UC GPA data in the next section, the average admitted student GPA from Burlingame to Berkeley was 4.22.
The UCs also release GPA data for each school. Take a look at Burlingame's averages across all UC campuses:
The average admitted student GPAs for BHS students include:
Even UC Riverside admits from BHS average 3.92 weighted GPAs. All other campuses show an average admitted student UC GPA above 4.0, which you should bear in mind as you prepare your UC strategy. Even a 4.0 weighted GPA alone is not enough to secure admission to most UC campuses.
Students who do well here typically:
With open-access APs, AOs expect you to take challenging courses. And with most average UC admit GPAs above 4.0, you’ll need to take rigor to be competitive. Just make sure you’re taking on an amount you can reasonably manage.
At a school with 344 AP Scholars in one graduating class, most students in your school group will have strong extracurriculars. Colleges look for students who have made an impact and will continue to on campus, so your application should highlight the positive impact you’ve made and point towards how you’re a good fit for the college because of it.
Your extracurriculars, essays, and course choices should point in the same direction. This is the core principle of crafting a cohesive college application. In addition to a strong academic profile, a cohesive narrative will help you stand out.
UC unpredictability means students should build balanced lists. You should have true safeties on your list (schools with admit rates above 70%+ where you fall within or above the average admitted GPA and standardized test scores).
It’s not Burlingame High School’s reputation that gets students into college. Your academic context, rigor, extracurricular impact, and narrative do.
If you want to understand how your specific profile will read to admissions officers—and how to shape a standout narrative from a school where so many students look strong on paper—book a free intro call to chat.