I’m with sdduuuude here. I live in UC and a lot of the kids who attend Curie, with my kids, are from Clairemont – they choiced in. Based on anectdotal evidence it must be VERY doable. Probably 20% of my kids classmates live in Clairemont.

If the choice thing doesn’t work for you, but you pick Clairemont – consider public/charter schools like Muir – it’s a K-12 school over in the Mt. streets… I have friends who send their kids there – and LOVE it.

For location/price/etc Clairemont is a good value.

Clairemont doesn’t have “new” houses… but many have been fixed up very nicely. Since you’re not looking for the 3500 sf mcMansion – you’ll find a lot of 1500-2200 sf houses in Clairemont on bigger lots. And commute to La Jolla is easy.

I also agree with AN – I used to think of Mira Mesa schools as being crappy… But based on things he posted, I went and re-looked at it… They’re pretty darn good, these days. Not perfect – but a lot better than they used to be.

When I first got out of college I lived downtown (before it was trendy) and commuted to Oceanside. It was a reverse commute – 40 miles, 40 minutes… But I swore I’d NEVER commute more than 30 minutes each way again. If I wanted to go to dinner with friends I had to factor in the time to commute home, time to primp, time to get back out again… and would end up having to leave early just to make it work. Soooo not worth it.