Best High Schools in Elgin, IL

Elgin has two public high schools, Elgin High School and Larkin High School, both serving grades 9–12. In 2025–26, the schools’ average proficiency across the reported tests was 28% at Elgin and 23% at Larkin, compared with 47% statewide. Both schools also have very high chronic absenteeism: 54% at Elgin and 55% at Larkin, versus 24% statewide. The most important distinction for families comparing the two is that Elgin leads Larkin in all nine tested grade-and-subject results, even though both schools remain below state proficiency.

Elgin High School is the stronger performer overall: its average proficiency is 5 percentage points higher than Larkin High School’s, and Elgin leads by 1 to 13 points on individual tests. The largest gap is in grade 10 science; the smallest is in grade 9 math. Elgin also has the higher graduation rate, 83% compared with Larkin’s 79%. Neither school is close to the state graduation rate of 90%, and both have higher dropout rates than the state. Their shared attendance concern is especially notable: chronic absenteeism is more than twice the statewide rate at each school.

Results vary by test and year rather than showing a simple upward or downward trend. Larkin’s grade 11 ACT proficiency rose in all three subjects from 2024–25 to 2025–26, but its PreACT results fell in seven of nine comparisons. Elgin’s largest declines were in grade 9 science, down 11 percentage points, and grade 9 ELA, down 6 points. SchoolDigger gives both schools one star; Elgin’s ranking fell from the 27th percentile in 2023–24 to the 16th in 2025–26, while Larkin’s fell from the 26th to the 11th. For 2024–25, free/reduced lunch eligible figures were 63% at Elgin and 65% at Larkin; student-teacher ratios were 17.2 and 15.3, respectively. These are context measures, not explanations for the different results. The year-to-year test results are for different groups of students.