patrick.net

A message to loving parents who buy $1 mil+ on shacks for the kids. This is no exception in third world countries like China and India - Lots of kids come from rural areas,from very poor families and make to top colleges in those countries and eventually make to good universities in USA.

bubblesitter says

Lots of kids come from rural areas,from very poor families and make to top colleges in those countries and eventually make to good universities in USA.

not true; the quality of a kid's school and teachers overwhelmingly determine a child's academic and professional success. This has been demonstrated in multiple studies.

You may read about anecdotal inspiration stories, but those are the exceptions.

It's not the school itself... it's the parents.

The school districts just get all the credit, but in my experience, the teachers and staff are no better than any other district. The teachers and staff will work just as hard as they need to, as dictated by the expectations of the parents.

So the follow-up is, if you want to turn your area into a fortress, get all the parents together and collectively demand higher standards from the teachers. It's really that simple.

It seems that the town the kid went to school had pretty good teachers. Somehow there are no overpriced McMansions. Ok, I saw some double wide trailer homes maybe... LOL

Nobody is disputing that good teachers help. Its debatable that the teachers in Cupertino are any better then say Santa Clara or Sunnyvale. If anything it has more to do with:
1. New immigrants that move into Cupertino put more pressure on their kids to excel.
2. The kids are already pretty booksmart because their parents had to be booksmart to got out of their poverty stricken country and move to the US.
3. Parents put pressure on teachers to turn the school into an Asian style pressure cooker school.

I don't need a study to tell me good teachers = good students. I just don't think overpaying for a mcmansion really buys your kids a good education.

If you have a study on the relationship between overpaying for a house and academic success, I'd love to see it.

Serpentor says

1. New immigrants that move into Cupertino put more pressure on their kids to excel.
2. The kids are already pretty booksmart because their parents had to be booksmart to got out of their poverty stricken country and move to the US.
3. Parents put pressure on teachers to turn the school into an Asian style pressure cooker school.

A+ or GTFO.

exactly

Serpentor says

A message to loving parents who buy $1 mil+ on shacks for the kids.

what is GTFO?

chip_designer says

what is GTFO?

Get The Fuck Out

I knew a colleague, white, but grew up in a town south of texas, where he was the the minority, since majority was the mexicans, but he got into MIT with full scholarship.

i heard colleagues telling me kids who goes to those fortress high schools, do homework until 2am, very competitive those kids.

the asian parent will not blink an eye when deciding to put their kids into the best school, even at the expense of buying the million dollar crap home in the fortress

even if the kid is slow or not very good academically, still going to a school like that, can dramatically improve his/her chances of getting into a university, and guarantee a decent job.

and most parents want their kids associated with kids of similar family status. You don't care if your kid associates with bad , bully kids?

i bet most people who complain of the crazyness around fortress real estate, don't have kids going to high school.

Serpentor says

chip_designer says

what is GTFO?

Get The Fuck Out

haha, funny

chip_designer says

even if the kid is slow or not very good academically, still going to a school like that, can dramatically improve his/her chances of getting into a university, and guarantee a decent job.

and most parents want their kids associated with kids of similar family status. You don't care if your kid associates with bad , bully kids?

i bet most people who complain of the crazyness around fortress real estate, don't have kids going to high school.

From your writing, it sounds like you did not grow up here. I think most immigrants associate going to a good high school with success because thats the way they were raised. Except they had to pass a certain national exam to get into the schools in their home country. Getting into a good school puts them in on track out of poverty. If they don't test well, they don't have any chance of success in life. In the US, they think they can buy their way into a good school and success for their kids.

Thats not how it works here in the US. Yes, you stress the importance of academics, most likely your kids will turn out well. They will most likely become engineers and doctors. you don't need exceptional school to get into exceptional college. you can go to a shitty high school, but as long as your kids put in their work, they can get into Harvard or whatever schools they want. In many cases, coming from an moderately advantaged background hurts their chances because 1. they have to compete with their peers, 2. prestigious schools put a premium on students that achieve success despite a poor economic background.

In the US academic success with most likely guarantee your kid mediocre success (engineer, doctors).. But they will always be working for "the man"

To get to the next level, they need to learn personal skills and leadership. Qualities that make them become leaders (Community leaders, VPs and CEO's) are NOT learned from hitting the books in pressure cooker schools, they are learned from living a balanced life and excelling in sports and other activities.

I went to a well known engineering university, and we hard core engineers used to look down of the athletes taking management majors, now I look at my linkedin and all of the former atheletes are VPs and CEOs.

kids in Pressure cooker schools

chip_designer says

even if the kid is slow or not very good academically, still going to a school like that, can dramatically improve his/her chances of getting into a university, and guarantee a decent job.

I'd say it would moderately improve his chances. All and all, it's still a combination of a numbers game (GPA/rank & SAT I/II) and extracurriculars/awards. At pressure cooker high schools, it's a lot harder to be a newspaper editor when everyone else wants to put it on one's resume.

At a small town HS, your less talented kid may be the one who starts his school's radio station and at the same time, since many kids at those Podunk HS don't really try hard, he may even be in the top 10-20% of his class.

End result, with a resume like top 10% / ~690 mean SAT per section along with school or no name township radio station founder, leads to admissions to a lot of places [& even some scholarship money if he's in the top 1 to 5 of his class] vs top 40% / ~690 mean SAT per section / active in 4-5 obviously phony activities like { Glee Club / Science Club / Free Tibet society / LaCrosse intramural etc } in some elite 'burb outside of fill-in [Chicago, NYC, Boston, Philly, etc]. Every other suburban kid looks like the latter applicant, trying to depict a socially conscious, well-rounded individual for admission's sakes. These kids tend to get into middle tier private colleges and wind up borrowing money for it. I wouldn't call that a great accomplishment.

Serpentor says

I went to a well known engineering university, and we hard core engineers used to look down of the athletes taking management majors, now I look at my linkedin and all of the former atheletes are VPs and CEOs.

Well, engineering, unlike most other areas of pursuit, eats up a lot of one's time and energy, just in getting the homeworks done. The key here is that graduates of engineering programs are more and more, starting to opt for careers in management consulting or finance, to get out of that tech track, working for the man, ala senior "techie role" for corporate America.

I've appended here, something from another thread on career trajectories ...
here's one from the MIT class survey (http://gecd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/GSS2011.pdf). Realize, MIT is a top tier STEM focused college, not a liberal arts place like Dartmouth or Swarthmore. If you total up the number of recruits from Finance and Management Consulting positions (i.e. Morgan & Stanley, JP Morgan, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain, Deloitte, Citigroup), you'll see that those careers make up 40+% of MIT graduates (not attending grad programs). You'll find similar results for the past number of years of surveys.

chip_designer says

and most parents want their kids associated with kids of similar family status. You don't care if your kid associates with bad , bully kids?

Yes, I want my kids to stand up to the Bullies. (Or be a bully so he can run for president like Romney. ) They are going to have to learn that life is hard, and they'll need the social skills to handle adversity. If they are sheltered and stuck in the house hitting the book, the best they can do is become a fucking geek engineer that doesn't get laid. If they hang out with kids from a similar background (ie geek kids from geek Indian/Chinese families) they'll never know how to even relate to a 6'5" 350lb former linebacker from Wisconsin. They'll never learn to handle bullies in the work place. I want my kids to be the alpha dog/bitch that know his/her shit but also has the skills to lead his/her pack of geek engineers to do his/her bidding.