[quote=Dukehorn]What a cluster@#$@ of a thread. Here’s an easy way to look at it. If tuition for private school for my two kids is 25k each year for 7 years, at a minimum, I’m willing to toss in that extra $350k into a house with a junior high/high school rated in the 850s or above–easy, no questions asked.
I might be willing to drop my kids down into a lower scoring school but it would be nice for them to have AP classes. I wouldn’t drop them into a 600s scoring high school ever. I agree with flu that having a discourse on college admissions scoring students higher from a worse performing high school is a stupid thread piece–is spdrun going to give us sociology studies about what happens when kids are extremely bored at school for 7 straight years. hint, it usually doesn’t turn out well.[/quote]
I agree that this has turned into a cluster@#$@ of a thread, Dukehorn.
I’m going to take a stab at this and say that in SD County, private elementary school is about $35K per kid, middle school is $15K per kid and HS is $30K per kid. Total of 13 years (incl K) for $80K per kid. That’s $160K for two kids. If your kids are already in school and you’re just calculating 7 years of public school after you move, then it would be less. That is … unless you want them in Francis Parker or other really expensive HS.
I haven’t looked into secular private HS’s but the Catholic HS’s in SD County have a very rigorous and challenging college-prep curriculum. Also, ALL public HS’s in CA (excepting “continuation” HS) offer AP classes. However, some HS’s offer more AP classes than others. Most schools rated 7 and up have at least 4 AP offerings. Very, very few HS’s in the state rate a 9 and I’m not sure if there are any HS’s in CA which rate a 10 (there may be a handful).
I agree that a HS rated a 6 may not be the best choice for a bright kid.
I think spdrun was just suggesting a valid way to “beat the system.” flu himself has posted several threads here lamenting the fact that he feels Asians are “over-represented” at the UC and therefore his kid (however deserving at the time of application) will be overlooked in favor of a less-deserving applicant from an under-represented group. In his defense, he did have a point as his kid will likely attend TPHS (if he still lives in CV) and will have to work their butt off to have a class ranking anywhere near the top 9% of that HS, which is highly competitive. The ELC is an accepted route to UC admission. An ELC applicant is not guaranteed admission to the campus(es) of their choice but they are guaranteed admission into a UC campus.
Dukehorn, I don’t know how old your kid(s) are but you will find (if you haven’t already) that getting accepted into any UC (or CSU campus, for that matter) is nowhere near as easy as it used to be. All the “rules” for admission have changed in the last 2-3 years and thousands of hopeful highly-qualified CA-resident HS graduates are left out in the cold by mid-April.
I highly recommend that all UC/CSU applicants (both freshman and junior) apply to at least six campuses (of each system, if applying to both systems) and be willing to take one of their choices down the line, if offered to them.
