Summary:
ZIP code 02127, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood, has two high schools — Excel High School (grades 10–12, 301 students) and Boston Collaborative High School (grades 9–12, 210 students) — for a combined reported enrollment of 511 students, both in the Boston district, which ranks 299 of 351 districts statewide (15th percentile, 1 star).
Each school leads in different areas. Excel High School has the stronger graduation rate at 85.6%, above the district's 81.3%, along with smaller classes (student-teacher ratio 7.2 vs 10.1), higher per-student spending ($27,509 vs $21,362 in 2020–2021), and higher reported English Language Arts proficiency (5.88% vs 0%). Its warning signs are a dropout rate of 12.6% — above the district's 8.8% — MCAS proficiency below district and state in every reported subject (Science 4.35%, ELA 5.88%, Mathematics 17.65%, Physics 9.09%), and a recent rank of 329 of 349 (6th percentile, 0 stars) in 2024–2025, down from the 9th percentile in 2022–2023. Boston Collaborative High School has a much lower dropout rate of 4.2%, below the district's 8.8%, but a graduation rate of only 43.2% and ELA proficiency of 0% in 2025–2026; its last available rank history is from 2017–2018, at 342 of 345 (1st percentile, 0 stars).
The standout comparison is the 42.4 percentage-point graduation gap between the two schools, even though they share the same district. Notably, graduation and dropout rates tell opposite stories at each school, which likely reflects different student populations or school missions rather than a single explanation. Extra resources also do not clearly translate into higher test scores: Excel spends about $6,147 more per student yet still scores far below district and state averages. Keep in mind that free/reduced-lunch data is blank for both schools, spending figures are from 2020–2021, and Boston Collaborative reports only one MCAS subject from a different school year, so comparisons between the two should be made cautiously.
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