Studies focused on academic achievement at the high school level generally discuss individual and social predictors of school performance, rarely suggesting measures to be taken at the level of national public policies in the education field. At the same time, public policies are rarely driven by empirical research. In this context, the article analyses the results of a national survey (N= 2624) conducted in 2011 on high school pupils in Romania concerning the individual and the social factors that influence school performance. A regression model shows that class attendance and gender are the strongest predictors of school performance, closely followed by parents’ education and type of enrolment in a hierarchy of influences on pupils’ grades. Other aspects are related to parents’ migration abroad and peers’ behavior. These findings are further used to make recommendations for public policies in education.

Keywords: school performance, secondary education, individual predictors, social predictors, public policies.

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