Golden Valley High School is a high school located within the Merced Union High School District in the community of Merced, California, 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.AcademicsEnrollmentAccording to the United States Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, enrollment characteristics for the 2014-2015 school year were as follows:RankingsGolden Valley's Advanced Placement program has earned the praise of Newsweek magazine, which named it a "Top 1300" school in the United States, three years running. Golden Valley has also garnered a Silver Award from US News & World Report, which named it one of the top 1,800 schools in the United States.RivalsThe cross-town Bears of Merced High School 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.
