Examined in this paper are the effects of school characteristics on both the probability of dropping out and absenteeism as the strongest predictor of dropping out. The project employed a subsample from the High School and Beyond database that contains results from questionnaires and achievement tests given in 1980 to approximately 30,000 sophomores in 1,100 public and private high schools. The sub-sample used for this paper--160 schools and 4,450 students--was investigated using the HLM analytic technique (hierarchical linear modeling), which permits evaluation of the impact of school-level factors on the relationship among student characteristics, absenteeism, and dropping out. The analysis reveals that absenteeism is less prevalent in schools where faculty are interested in and engaged with students and where there is an academic emphasis. A committed faculty, an orderly environment, and a school emphasis on academic pursuits are all associated with lower probability of dropping out for disadvantaged and at-risk youth. Appended are 47 references and a technical appendix on HLM estimation. (SI)