South Shore High School, which was built to accommodate a total of 2,000 students, by 1964 had become overcrowded.

As of the 2021–2022 school year, 95.5% of South Shore's student body was African American, 3.3% Latino, 1.0% other and 0.2% Asian.

The school's newspaper The Shore Line won a first-place ranking in the American Scholastic Press Association annual review in 1983.

South Shore students won first place two consecutive times in an annual essay contest sponsored by the citizen school's committee in 1981 and 1982.

South Shore International College Prep is a selective enrollment magnet school that accepts students from throughout the city of Chicago.

South Shore competes in the Chicago Public League (CPL) and is a member of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA).

In 2014, coach Dan Novosel led the football program to a 9-0 record and an Inter-City 2 Championship.