Wilde Lake High

Wilde Lake High, a moderately sized high school in Columbia, Maryland, one of the schools within Howard County Public Schools, works with 1,197 students, covering grades 9 through 12.

Within Howard County Public Schools, which oversees 77 schools and 57,565 students, Wilde Lake High is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Wilde Lake High reports that the most-represented group is Black (45%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Other groups include 22% White, 17% Hispanic, 8% multiracial, 7% Asian. The wider county runs roughly 20% Black, putting the school's mix considerably more Black than the area baseline.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 86 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 13.9:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 15.3:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Roughly 43% of students at Wilde Lake High qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is north of Howard County's rate of about 27%.

With demographic context factored in, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Wilde Lake High sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 49.0%; actual is 32.5%, a gap of -16.5 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Howard County indicate median household income runs about $149,763, 65% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 4% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Howard County runs 78 public schools (combined enrollment of about 57,565 students), of which Wilde Lake High is one.

Wilde Lake Middle is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.2 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Wilde Lake High. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Wilde Lake High ranks 9th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 47.6%.

The campus sits in a city-core setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 6%: 1,274 students in 2018 compared to 1,197 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share decreased from 27% to 22%.

Inside the community feed, members of the Wilde Lake High community share and discuss school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Members of the school community can share what they know.