Best High Schools in CA

This is an interesting list. They just count the number of kids each school sent to Harvard, Princeton and MIT. One huge flaw in their methodology is that they didn’t control for class size. Castilleja with a class size of only 61 sent 14 girls to HPM (14/61 = 23.0%), is ranked lower than Lynbrook (28/472 = 5.9%). Obviously Castilleja has a much higher success rate.

https://polarislist.com/best-high-schools-in-california

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Harvard-Westlake has the financial firepower of Charlie Munger.

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Gunn is obviously better than Paly.

How come Monta Vista is so much worse than Lynbrook? No wonder Cupertino house prices are going nowhere.

:-1:

So if you control for class size, among private schools. ranking would be like this instead:

Castilleja 14/61 = 23%
Harker 36/176 = 20%
Harvard-Westlake 51/286 = 18%
SFU High 16/100 = 16%

Hardly any black students in the top schools. According to BLM they must be racist. How does liberal guilt deal with that?. Of course now we find out that BLM is actually a corrupt extortionist, money printing fraud. Basically a piggy bank for its founder. What a shocker.

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A neat infographic on the number of Asian admissions to elite colleges:

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Dear friends .
Now that they eliminated the SAT and they are relying purely on GPA. Does that mean Gunn high school would suddenly be less valuable because it is very difficult to be be in the top 10% of Gunn high and unknown high schools in the bay area will be more valuable .

Please guide

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Isn’t UC going to have a new test?

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So go to a top elem and middle school, but stick to less known high school while taking a ton of AP classes? My kid is in 1st grade. Just getting ready. :laughing:

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or don’t worry about UC. Just provide them with right opportunities and exposure, send them to good schools, and be themselves. They will come out good and select the college of their choice. :slight_smile:

I think getting rid of standardized tests will actually give the name brand schools an edge. It’ll be harder for kids in bad schools to show they have the goods, while kids with rich parents can puff up their resumes with fancy “volunteering” trips to Africa or something. It’s a really bone headed policy.

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It will be good to hear from parents who has a list of interesting sports or activities that gave their kids an edge. We have some thoughts and example of relatives who’s pulled it off but every kid is different.

I am having exact conversations with my neighbor since her son went to College this year and he was graduated from Gunn high. Still to be explored but at least what I found is it’s important for school to prepare the kids to be successful at the college.

It would be really nice to have a conclusion on this . Mu kids are only in 5th and -st grade but

Would a super competitive school like Gunn would become an extra challenge to overcome now . They keep changing the rules of the game

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I have two older kids - both got into top 10 colleges. One graduated this year and the other in junior year.

Competitive school is certainly a problem. Very difficult for kids to stand out. Monta Vista has close to 50 National Merit Semifinalists every year. That’s more than the total from some states. If you take out the kids who get into Stanford because of faculty/legacy quota, Palo Alto schools fare miserably in top 10 college admissions.

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Where did your kids go to HS?

Just to be clear by “they” are you only referring to the UCs? Because other schools aren’t. MIT certainly isn’t. They believe it has value in determining how kids will do there.

You need to watch this video:

It is the best explanation I’ve seen of what colleges want and how to provide it for them. (It’s long, but worth it.)

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