4 ms·

The funny thing about many of those 'top schools'. You're actually worse off as top universities cap the number of students from a given high-school. Worse yet,

The funny thing about many of those 'top schools'. You're actually worse off as top universities cap the number of students from a given high-school. Worse yet, most the kids are doing after school tutoring to boost their scores, making it an arm race. I'd argue that a well motivated student would do better by being in a slightly worse school

PradeetPatel 4y ago
Grades are only but one aspect of going to a "top school", the networking associated with it cannot be underlooked. It is likely that the students will create connections with others that may benefit them in the future, the same could be said about the parents too.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  OT, but I think you mean "underestimated" or "overlooked".
gnicholas 4y ago
Yes, and the mental health aspects can result in continuing challenges. A family friend had three kids go through HS in PA and not only did none of the kids end up in a particularly great school, two of the three kids didn't finish on time due to unspecified/emotional issues. When we were house-hunting we took it as a consolation that we couldn't afford to live in Palo Alto!
- michaelwww 4y ago
  There's always East Palo Alto but kids there face a different set of challenges
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    For sure, though I think their HS is actually pretty good. At least parts of EPA feed into Menlo Atherton HS.
  - bushbaba 4y ago
    East Palo Alto students of 'color' can transfer to Palo Alto's school district among others.
whatever1 4y ago
The most important aspect of a top school is that a student is around classmates with high drive (maybe family influenced) to succeed. This does not just create competition, most importantly, you get the signaling that it is ok and expected to study hard, to do your homework, to say no to playing so that you can finish your assigned homework. Now if you have a top student in a lagging school, most likely the classmates will drag them down. In my school good students were physically bullied by the “cool” guys. I think that classes need to be divided based on the performance of the students, that will be assessed on regular intervals. Let the good students go as fast as they need to, focus for the lagging students to get at least the basics right. There is no reason to pretend that we are teaching advanced calculus to lagging students, when they cannot even do simple arithmetic operations.
- xapata 4y ago
  There are bullies and is anti-intellectual sentiment in "good" schools as well.
shuckles 4y ago
This is incorrect. You need to attend a school admissions counselors are familiar with. They often can’t evaluate grades, academic advisors, or recommendation letters from schools they don’t repeatedly place students from, and therefore have a harder time making a case for high performing students from unknown schools. I once talked to an admissions counselor for a “selective” university who could name the challenging coursework and reliable recommendation letter writers at all the best high schools in the region she covered.
ec109685 4y ago
Are you sure there is a cap? There were a huge number of Stanford and Cal accepts my year and literally nobody talked of caps. I do agree that talent could be drowned out at a school like Gunn, whereas you might stand out more at a less prestigious school.
- BarryMilo 4y ago
  I find it astounding that people still talk in terms of "talent". What else, do we still think America is a meritocracy? By and large, people.perform exactly as their socioeconomic status would predict. "talent" is a myth.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    If you think the US is a perfect meritocracy you’re a fool. If you don’t think it’s a great deal closer to it than an enormous majority of past and present societies you’re a bigger fool. The same is true of the entire OECD and many countries outside it to greater and lesser degrees.

PradeetPatel 4y ago

Grades are only but one aspect of going to a "top school", the networking associated with it cannot be underlooked. It is likely that the students will create connections with others that may benefit them in the future, the same could be said about the parents too.

gnicholas 4y ago
OT, but I think you mean "underestimated" or "overlooked".

gnicholas 4y ago

Yes, and the mental health aspects can result in continuing challenges. A family friend had three kids go through HS in PA and not only did none of the kids end up in a particularly great school, two of the three kids didn't finish on time due to unspecified/emotional issues. When we were house-hunting we took it as a consolation that we couldn't afford to live in Palo Alto!

michaelwww 4y ago
There's always East Palo Alto but kids there face a different set of challenges
- gnicholas 4y ago
  For sure, though I think their HS is actually pretty good. At least parts of EPA feed into Menlo Atherton HS.
- bushbaba 4y ago
  East Palo Alto students of 'color' can transfer to Palo Alto's school district among others.

whatever1 4y ago

The most important aspect of a top school is that a student is around classmates with high drive (maybe family influenced) to succeed. This does not just create competition, most importantly, you get the signaling that it is ok and expected to study hard, to do your homework, to say no to playing so that you can finish your assigned homework. Now if you have a top student in a lagging school, most likely the classmates will drag them down. In my school good students were physically bullied by the “cool” guys. I think that classes need to be divided based on the performance of the students, that will be assessed on regular intervals. Let the good students go as fast as they need to, focus for the lagging students to get at least the basics right. There is no reason to pretend that we are teaching advanced calculus to lagging students, when they cannot even do simple arithmetic operations.

xapata 4y ago
There are bullies and is anti-intellectual sentiment in "good" schools as well.

shuckles 4y ago

This is incorrect. You need to attend a school admissions counselors are familiar with. They often can’t evaluate grades, academic advisors, or recommendation letters from schools they don’t repeatedly place students from, and therefore have a harder time making a case for high performing students from unknown schools. I once talked to an admissions counselor for a “selective” university who could name the challenging coursework and reliable recommendation letter writers at all the best high schools in the region she covered.

ec109685 4y ago

Are you sure there is a cap? There were a huge number of Stanford and Cal accepts my year and literally nobody talked of caps. I do agree that talent could be drowned out at a school like Gunn, whereas you might stand out more at a less prestigious school.

BarryMilo 4y ago
I find it astounding that people still talk in terms of "talent". What else, do we still think America is a meritocracy? By and large, people.perform exactly as their socioeconomic status would predict. "talent" is a myth.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  If you think the US is a perfect meritocracy you’re a fool. If you don’t think it’s a great deal closer to it than an enormous majority of past and present societies you’re a bigger fool. The same is true of the entire OECD and many countries outside it to greater and lesser degrees.