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this young lady didn't need to live in Cupertino to get into Harvard. (she didn't need running water, electricity, or even parents for that matter)
truly inspiring story. you think your childhood was tough? well, her story will kick your ass.
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chip_designer says
'status', eh?
Would that be 'status' like (Tiger) mom's 'status' in her social pecking order? Would that be the difference between mom's Lexus and her Toyota?
Regarding the "bad, bully" kids, it's a false choice. Not every K-12 that's outside of The Fortress is dominated by "bad, bully kids". I hear this all the time in the canyons of cubicles at work in "the Valley". Parents who are status oriented or clueless or whatever have outsourced their parenting responsibilities to the API of the local K-12.
Because like Serpent saidSerpentor says
Serpentor says
That is right. Their "GaoKao Culture". But this is the USA, not the Far East. And the API is not the GaoKao.
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chip_designer says
An (immigrant) engineer explained it to me when a different immigrant complained about the craziness around Fortress real estate. She took me aside and discretely told me that he "was jealous".
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Serpentor says
Be careful about titles. There is a great deal of title inflation in certain industries. Hollywood and Wall Street jobs are notorious for abuse of the term VP. If you're not a VP, then you're basically entry level or a step above.
It's not like being a VP at an old-line insurance company, where you've got 2,000 people under you.
Same goes for titles like "Director." Hard to tell if you're middle-management or running the entire company.
And then, there's the title inflation connected with the proliferation of startups, where everyone is a CEO or a CIO or a Chief Something-or-other.
The real litmus tests: How much money are they making, and how many people are reporting to them? Remember to adjust for cost-of-living, and be careful when contractors are claimed. "Oversight" over a contractor often just means that the person has worked with a contractor on a project.
Yeah, I'm cynical. I guess I've just read too many resumes.
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yeah, my gf works in banking. I know all about inflated titles and "VP"s. but my former classmates are all in tech or head up hospitals etc....
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chip_designer says
some readers think status is keeping up with the jones. I did not imply that. People of different social classification , if outside work, don't want to mingle together. Talking about the techie/mgmt parents kid with a janitor/gardener/car mechanic parents kids. And this does not happen, so people of similar classification tend to move together, as in fortress neighboorhoods.
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B.A.C.A.H. says
a big pot of mixed cultures.
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San Jose, CA
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Truly inspiring indeed. Thanks for sharing.
SFace made his points about this topic many times on here so there is no need to rehash them. To me, it's a probability game. That's why the Yankees spent all kinds of money to buy talents because it gives them the highest probability to win the world series. It all comes down to "at what cost?"
This reminds me of the saying: A championship team will always beat a team of champions. To each his own I'd say.
Now don't be like Patrick, who can't get anyone to sell him a 3/2 shack in the fortress for $500k, then started Patrick.net. LOL!!!
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chip_designer says
There you go again thinking like a immigrant. I'm guessing indian based on your focus on social classes. Friends for your kids (or yourself) should depend on the person not their economic background. Some of the biggest loser lazy spoiledkids come from advantaged background while a blue collar kid might be a good influence based on their family work ethic. Fyi. Jim clark grew up from a dirt poor family.
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Serpentor says
True that.
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Serpentor says
There you go, thinking like an old-fashion midwesterner :-) !
And yes, I concur with you. From my experience, the whole socioeconomic caste thinking is alive and well, all over elite suburbias, from Boston to DC. The immigrant mindset, from Asia to eastern Europe, hasn't made it any better. Instead, it's now a multi-ethnic polarity (WASPy, Jewish, eastern European, east Asian, south Asian) neurosis. The thing here is that it's not a useful thing, as many soon discover, those neighbors really don't stay friends with you, as soon as you either lose your job or have to re-located elsewhere. My closest friends, after all these years, are more from the low to regular income backgrounds from semi-rural (western MA, Maine, VT) regions or ordinary towns around the cities. I seldom speak to the wannabe nouveau riche "Greenwich CT-to-Scarsdale NY" Gucci/Louis Vitton glutch, outside of work related conferences.
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chip_designer says
Dude, you are hilarious. You are making remarks in jest to parody some over-the-top-snobbery and elitist attitudes.
Fact of the matter is, whether you choose to believe it or not, is that I am a techie (though I don't need to boast about it in my handle), my partner is in finance and we and our kids mingle with all types, all of the time. But we are Americans (one of us, an Asian-looking American), fully assimilated into American society and comfortable in our shoes.
Our oldest kid got accepted a couple of years ago to all of the UC's except Berkeley and UCLA, although some of her classmates from our non-Fortress high school did wind up in those places, also a handful went to the Ivies and Stanford. So her non-Fortress high school did not hold her back. She had all kinds of friends from all kinds of backgrounds, as did her friends at those elite universities.
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Hey BACAH,
NO STANFORD NO RESPECT! WHY YOUR CHILD CONSTANT DISAPPOINTMENT?!
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bimmerman,
Stanford and the other Elites are best deferred for grad school. And in grad school, some majors provide the support for the full time students.
Of all the whining we hear about of those grad school student loan burdens, except for medicine it's only for majors that don't add productive value.
Some of majors like MBA are even anti-productive to our civilization.
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No Stanford no respect! This is price you pay for living in poor neighborhood with lazy gwailo parents. Without high API school no prestigious university will accept! Good luck to become doctor or lawyer, the only respectable professions.
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B.A.C.A.H. says
Amen to that!
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chip_designer says
I have more than a few friends who went to Cupertino/Sunnyvale HS, and now their kids are going to the same schools. They too dont understand the crazyness around the fortress RE. So whats changed in the HS or Cupertino what would have warrented such higher prices...
Take it from people who been around here and seen it all...
there isnt anything .. nada..zer0... i dont know whats inside these peoples mind for them to rush and push prices 2-3x higher vs pre-bubble mid 90s prices...
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B.A.C.A.H. says
my god, people really misunderstand others, and add mistake on top of other comments.
I mingle too with my gardener, with grocery bagger , with the contractor bidding on my project, just so I can get a good deal or to not sound cold. I don't want people to hate me.
But do you invite them for dinner at your house? or how about going to a golf range together?
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thomas.wong1986 says
your frienthomas.wong1986 says
thomas.wong1986 says
You didn't meet or talk to a real chinese or indian who bought a 1 million+ home (in the past 5 years) in saratoga, cupertino
by word of mouth, these people think there must be something very beneficial to kids going to these schools, and therefore warranted to buy a house in there, no matter how expensive it is.
and you did not see anything, nada , zero?
and you are chinese. I am surprised by your comment.
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chip_designer says
Its you who is misunderstanding. By your definition that is not mingling. That is business, not friendship.
I actually do have friends in the blue collar field, my kickboxing/mma partner is also my mechanic.. (a good mechanic is like GOLD, esp if you have some semi-legal performance modifications in your car, LOL)
There are a few guys in my group of friends that don't make a whole lot of money (social worker)
Yes most of my friends are in the tech industry, just because start of friendships typically start out in school/universities. however, some of my friends came from dirt poor backgrounds, while others have parents who makes Romney's fortune look like pocket change (we didn't know until much later because he was so laid back and modest). Family economic background should not determine friendships. I would not think for one second if my kids wanted to befriend a good hardworking kid who's parents are gardeners or plumbers.
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chip_designer says
herd mentality. Sheep. baaahhh. actually more like lemmings "all my friends are doing it, I guess I should too"
Actually most of them have been around for a long time, brought when Cupertino was just middle class. They worked hard to save up the money, rose up though the ranks, and maybe made some money on stocks...
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chip_designer says
No im not chinese... BA has had asian, latino, and whites for a long long time. Cupertino is no different. An east Asian or East Coast American who bought $1M home is a FOOL. What exactly can you say has changed in the school since I or anyone of my friends graduated in the 70s-80s. And no dont say computers.. we had the back then !
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chip_designer says
plenty.. and they get a real dose of reality after 1 hour... many of these people were not even aware of places like Silicon valley before year 2000. Even worse they are clueless on how the economic engine works around here. $1M home in SV dont work...
all you have is hype today.. and schools are part of that hype..
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Why get so worked up over people willing to pay $1M for a 3/2 tract house?
If it is so stupid, well they will end up financially ruined, right?
Some of you guys want the world to go back to the nice, comfortable days of 1980’s when the Russians self imploded and the Chinese behaved like good coolies and Indians were mud people that didn’t know shit about software and japan were just like short mericans that can build good cars but of no threat otherwise.
The world has become way more competitive and will be more so in the future.
I don’t think it is bad to overfocus on a good education. The alternative is much worse. I would even go as far as to state that much of the usa’s dysfunctionality is due to her people’s failure to master simple math and lack of knowledge of scientific methods to problem solving. Of course, we in patnet are not like that, it is the other 95% behind the tree that are the problem.
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thomas.wong1986 says
i see, but thomas.wong is chinese name, but not you. Its just an alias, you pretend to confuse people right? :)
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Serpentor says
yes, we all know that, it is human nature. Just look at the iphone phenomenon.
don't you have one too?
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chip_designer says
It's the cult of Apple!
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kt1652 says
And over paying for a house in a "good" school district will change that??
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thomas.wong1986 says
see this story just came out today, you don't have to read the whole thing, the title says it all:
http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_20840660/east-san-jose-parents-assail-intolerable-middle-schools
so if you are a parent who can afford things, then you will know why cupertino houses are prized.
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chip_designer says
nope. Android for me. Iphones are nice, but I really love my android phone (widgets, Built in Navigation, Flash, Bigger screen, 4G internet, inexpensive removable batteries & MicroSD cards)
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chip_designer says
right. because there are only choice between the ghettos and over priced fortresses. LOL
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with all the emphasis on their kids learning math and science. It really shows that the parents are the ones that need to learn math. LOL
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Serpentor says
Shhh ! Do you really want them and their kids, with those values, spilling over out of The Fortress schools into where our kids goto?
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Serpentor says
Ha Ha, now that's funny!!! (and true...)
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Call it Crazy says
How do you know this is too much house payment for these folks?
Because they don’t have golf club memberships, expensive cars, jet set vacations?
What if they are happy to live within a comfortable commute for their jobs or businesses and good schools are very important to them?
Maybe some of them just have more money than you realize because they don’t spend it on frivolous ways. Some of them have parents that lived self imposed life of frugality and they actually have money set aside to help their children. It is not suffering for them, sacrifice yes, but worthwhile in their value system.
But like I said, if people are so stupid and way overpaid, assuming these are not the old timers that bought in 1982. They will suffer financially.
Lets go back to 1982, when my class mate bought a house in SJ for 210K. It was really really expensive then too and BTW his parents funded his downpayment.
As far as how living in a good schools helps advance math and science skills.
I know for a fact, in statistical terms, going to a low achievement school will lower thier test scores in a significant sample size if all other factors are unchanged.
Lets not be so simple minded to think this one swatch of SV can be representative of the entire usa. How the general society behaves is way too complex and beyond a paragraph but I will tell you it is probably represented by a bell curve. There will be outliers on the tails who will be considered abnormal. It could be these school score buyers are on the extreme end, trying their very best to give their children the best odds possible within their influence. Now if the entire usa society were compelled to achieve magnitude order of educational achievement, lets say in math and science, then the entire bell curve would shift. But in order for that to happen, there has to be a way to measure progress. How do you do measure it?
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kt1652 says
Because you are making the confusion API = "good schools". No. API = "good test takers", or maybe even "good teaching to the test".
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B.A.C.A.H. says
Pretty much. Almost any system can be "gamed."
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Serpentor says
I wonder why every flicking car dealer I ever went to ask me "How much payment can you afford each month?"
My wife who has a ms in computer was also hounded relentessly on how much car can she afford each month?
She told me, "I just want them to tell me how much is the car going cost but they just kept pushing for the monthly payment."
Do you know why they do that?
Because it works, people just end up buying on monthly payments. Seems to me this is representative of the general ignorance of simple, compounding math issue.
Math and science give you understanding of trends and rate of change and a whole bunch of other things like noise and probability. If you don't see how these skills would help us flush out charlatans politicians that promise us solutions that are not mathematically viable.
Remember, it is easy to solve a small problem early if you know it will compound into a huge future time bomb.
Do we have any problems like that?
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So enlighten me on how you would measure school achievement.
B.A.C.A.H. says
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You choose your words well, young jedi, "school achievement". Schools achieve API's.
Students achieve results. Students like East San Jose grad Jerry Yang.
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kt1652 says
I don't doubt many fortress residents have money. In fact, I've been saying that that exact same thing (long time immigrants residents that saved and worked hard are sitting pretty with low property tax) versus the urban legend of the mystical commie Chinese money. However, any recent buyers who bought in Cupertino thinking that it will buy success for their kids are just pissing their money away. They could have done just as well and saved a couple hundred grand buying in Sunnyvale, campbell or Willow Glenn