asianautica said – When applying to colleges, I doubt they put that much weight in the school you graduate from but more on what your GPA is and what your SAT score is.
What matters is the environment. Mother at home, instead of working. Classmates who have mothers at home, so they are emotionally strong, value academics, pursue interests, have opportunities.
The higher test score schools attract the better teachers. More teachers apply to these schools, so the schools have their pick of staff.
Higher test score schools are a result of kids who come from “good” homes. Kids from educated parents are raised to value education. Since education is linked with income, you find that the higher test scores are in higher income areas. It’s not that poor people are less smart, but that their parents did not go to college, and are less likely to be support education for their kids, less likely to have caring parents, more likely to have a dysfunctional household.
My daughter, a student at Poway High, is surrounded by students who want to excel. It is cool to excel, do well in school. She tries to keep up with her friends: who can take the most honors and AP courses?
Is this the same way at Chula Vista High? National City High?
Again, the test scores are a measure of the types students that will surround your student. I care more that my daughter works hard and can solve problems, and be self reliant, than that she is the best student at her school. This is why we moved to Poway – for the environment of other like minded families.
Read The Millionare Next Door. Over 70% of them got Bs and Cs in college.
Going to Ivy League schools doesn’t increase your odds of having a happy marriage.
I think the mother at home in Mira Mesa is an example of what we should all strive for: kids and family are more important than status, and there is more to life than going to the “best” schools. These kids are going to be better off in the worst Mira Mesa schools, assuming mom at home spends time with her kids, than if she worked and they went to La Jolla Country Day.