Homes in the
Niles West HS district.

Niles West High School opened in the fall of 1958 as part of Niles Township High School District 219, the same district that runs Niles North High School. For its first four decades the teams were known as the Indians, a name the district retired in favor of the Wolves in 2001. The school has a long history of community involvement, including a notable two-week teachers' strike in 1996 during which students staged a walkout in support of the school. Today Niles West serves students from Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Skokie, and Niles, drawing from feeder schools including Lincoln Junior High, Fairview South, Lincoln Hall, Culver, and Park View.

Niles West is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for excellence in education and reports a 93% graduation rate, well above the Illinois average. The school offers an extensive Advanced Placement catalog spanning more than 30 AP courses, from Calculus BC, Biology, and Physics C to African American Studies, Seminar, and Research, alongside dual-enrollment options and Project Lead the Way engineering tracks. It is one of the most diverse high schools in the region, with more than 60% of students reporting they speak another language at home and 90 languages identified across the student body, and world-language offerings that include Assyrian, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, and Spanish.

Niles West competes in the Central Suburban League and the Illinois High School Association as the Wolves, with Niles North as its longtime crosstown rival. The Wolves field a full slate of boys and girls programs and have banked multiple state championships across their history. The baseball team won IHSA state titles in 1972 and 1975, the girls basketball team captured the state crown in 1979, and the boys gymnastics team won a state championship in 2016. Jewell Loyd, a WNBA champion and Olympic gold medalist, is a Niles West alum whose number 32 has been retired by the school.