[Mick]

In a graduating high school class of 500 at a non-magnet public school, there might be 2 other kids going to a top 20 private school. That’s for the whole top 20, not for the top ~5, which is a more realistic group for kids hoping to go to Stanford.  In that context, it doesn’t make sense to calibrate their interim academic goals based on what other kids in that type of school are doing. For kids in non-magnet public schools, getting into Stanford means setting goals in a different league from everyone else and completely tuning out the talk that they hear from other kids.

In the late 1970s, I went to a (charitably) non-magnet private high school. The valedictorian of our high school class got into her first choice/reach school...UC-Davis. I was salutatorian. I knew I wasn't getting into Stanford (I applied anyway) not because of my grades or test scores, but when I first saw the application and realized, for the first time, how phenomenally unprepared I was. My school didn't have AP classes or honors classes, or frankly, even challenging classes or decent teachers. In the entire history of the school (22 years), only one student got into Stanford. Happily, the miserable high school closed down in 1986.

It's a different world today. The stakes are so brobdingnagian. High school kids work incredibly hard. Kids who finish second get steak knives, so to speak. The pressure is boiler room-level. It's hard to get into the UC's and the top CSU's. My neighbor has two daughters, one goes to a JC, one goes to Hawaii.

[Mick]

In a graduating high school class of 500 at a non-magnet public school, there might be 2 other kids going to a top 20 private school. That’s for the whole top 20, not for the top ~5, which is a more realistic group for kids hoping to go to Stanford.  In that context, it doesn’t make sense to calibrate their interim academic goals based on what other kids in that type of school are doing. For kids in non-magnet public schools, getting into Stanford means setting goals in a different league from everyone else and completely tuning out the talk that they hear from other kids.

In the late 1970s, I went to a (charitably) non-magnet private high school. The valedictorian of our high school class got into her first choice/reach school...UC-Davis. I was salutatorian. I knew I wasn't getting into Stanford (I applied anyway) not because of my grades or test scores, but when I first saw the application and realized, for the first time, how phenomenally unprepared I was. My school didn't have AP classes or honors classes, or frankly, even challenging classes or decent teachers. In the entire history of the school (22 years), only one student got into Stanford. Happily, the miserable high school closed down in 1986.

It's a different world today. The stakes are so brobdingnagian. High school kids work incredibly hard. Kids who finish second get steak knives, so to speak. The pressure is boiler room-level. It's hard to get into the UC's and the top CSU's. My neighbor has two daughters, one goes to a JC, one goes to Hawaii.