Golden Valley High School is a high school located within the Merced Union High School District in the community of

Merced Merced (; Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 86,333, up from 78,958 in 2010. Incorporated on April 1 ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, United States. The school first opened in August 1994, with its first class of seniors graduating on June 5, 1996. The current enrollment is over 1,700 students in grades 9 through 12.

Academics

Enrollment

According to the United States Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, enrollment characteristics for the 2014-2015 school year were as follows:

Rankings

Golden Valley's Advanced Placement program has earned the praise of ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'' magazine, which named it a "Top 1300" school in the United States, three years running. Golden Valley has also garnered a Silver Award from '' U.S. News & World Report'', which named it one of the top 1,800 schools in the United States.''U.S. News & World Report'' - Best High Schools 2008
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Rivals

The cross-town Bears of

Merced High School Merced High School is located in Merced, California, United States. It is a part of the Merced Union High School District. The current enrollment is over 1,800 students in grades 9 through 12. The school is currently under Principal Marcus Knott ...

have been the Cougars' rivals since Golden Valley opened in 1994. Merced has a deep and long-standing animosity with the Atwater High School Falcons, both in sports and in academics. As the city of Merced grew, so did its student population, forcing the freshmen to be bussed to a different area of the city known as "East Campus" in order to adequately fit them all. This eventually drove the city to develop plans for a second city high school, Golden Valley High. Until the new school's opening, the main rival for the Merced Bears was the Atwater Falcons. However, the opening of Golden Valley prompted a split in districting of Merced, and nearly half of the first-year students at the new campus were from Merced High. Since then a great competition between "old school" and "new school" has sprung up, and Atwater has fallen into a close second-rival for both city schools.

References

External links