Founded in 1885 and rich in history, Columbia High School offers academic excellence and a wide range of elective courses and extracurricular activities. In 2015 Columbia High School was awarded a Silver Medal as one of the Best High Schools in the Country, according to U.S. News and World Reports and ranked 41st in New Jersey, and 1006th nationally. 26 CHS students received a perfect score of 800 on one or more elements of their SATs.

Columbia offers a strong college preparatory curriculum, with 21 AP offerings. Five or more Columbia High School seniors are usually selected as National Merit Semi-Finalists each year. Electives include forensic science, TV production, animation and computer graphics, film-making, music technology, philosophy, and Project Adventure, a high ropes course. More than 91% of graduates pursue further education. Recent graduates attend an impressive list of colleges and universities including: Boston College, Brown, Columbia, Cal Tech, University of Chicago, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Howard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, Stanford, University of Virginia, and Yale.

Outside of the classroom, students participate in championship athletics and an extensive array of extracurriculars. Just a few examples include an award-winning literary magazine and student newspaper; award-winning annual musicals; the Minority Achievement Committee (MAC) whose goal is to inspire academic excellence among African-American students, students of African descent, and students of color; philosophy and opera appreciation clubs, Diversity Rocks, Spectrum (LGBTQ support & awareness), a Gospel Choir, and many other talented music and drama groups.

Noted alumni come from a wide range of disciplines, including: Pulitzer winner, publisher, and CEO of the Knight Foundation, Alberto Ibargüen (1962), sexologist Alfred Kinsey (1912); architects Peter Eisenman (’50) and Richard Meier (’52); Olympic runner Joetta Clark (’80); renowned artist Bisa Butler ('91); Grammy award winning musician Lauryn Hill (’93); actor Zach Braff (’93); author Paul Auster (’65); first female United States Court of Appeals judge and first female African American partner in a Wall Street law firm Amalya Lyle Kearse (’55), and fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad ('03), also known for being the first Muslim American woman to wear a hijab while competing for the United States in the Olympics; and Grammy award winner SZA, aka Solana Imani Rowe ('08). Ultimate Frisbee was invented here in 1968.