[11] Catlin Gabel received a $3.8 million bequest from Howard Vollum (co-founder of Tektronix) in the late 1980s, growing the non-profit school's endowment.

[25] In 2020, Tiffany Toh, a member of The Flaming Chickens, was named one of ten Dean's List winners at the FIRST Robotics World award ceremony out of more than 90,000 students.

[29] The Catlin Gabel Eagles are one of the most successful small-school athletic programs in Oregon, having claimed 79 state championships since 1974.

[30] The Upper School competes in soccer, cross-country, basketball, baseball, track, golf, swimming, skiing, women's volleyball, and tennis.

Catlin Gabel's traditional athletic rival is Oregon Episcopal School, which is also based in Portland.

Girls soccer also won the unofficial 3A title during the COVID-shortened season in 2021, when the OSAA decided not to sponsor state tournaments but athletic directors in different sports organized a series of season-ended culminating events across classifications.

Jackson has the most state titles of any Oregon head coach in any OSAA sanctioned sport, with 14 in total (12 boys, 2 girls).

Grades one through five student projects include a worm farm and seedling starts for the campus garden.

[43] In 2020, students and community partners removed 25 truckloads of invasive species from 2.5 acres of school property and planted over 2,000 native shrubs and trees.

Bacon Bat is an event involving games, competitions and a cookout with the intention of building school spirit.

[citation needed] Additionally, in 1931 students first performed the play St. George and the Dragon, a tradition which continues to take place today.

[47] The school's annual Rummage Sale began during World War II and ran for 65 years, with the first event raising over $8,000.

It found that at least 21 Catlin Gabel faculty had taken advantage of their positions at the school in committing various degrees of sexual impropriety.

[49] Six more former students sued the school in April 2020 saying they were fondled, groped, and sexually abused by former teachers Richardson Shoemaker, Robert Ashe, Art Leo and Sam Crawley.