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Sunday, November 23, 2008

There is a HUGE fallacy in people's mind thinking they MUST get their kids into the BEST school possible but if that's the ONLY reason I don't recommend moving into these school districts. Here are the reasons why.
The sole purpose of wanting our children to have the best possible education is for them to get into the best possible university. 2 major quantitative factors for college admissions are the SAT score and the high school percentile rank (less important for private universities). The school district has NO effect on the SAT score while it makes a HUGE difference on the percentile rank. The top high schools have very heavy school loads and are VERY competitive so it is much harder to obtain a high percentile rank. Conversely, a high rank can be easily obtained by attending a school that's not so competitive. I have heard too many stories (even a few within my family) where the high schoolers graduating from Mission San Jose High with straight A's but the percentile ranking was only good enough for them to attend 2nd or 3rd tier UC schools. On the other hand, I know of a family that lives in Fremont but insists on attending Union City high school and graduated top of the class. In that case, they can pretty much choose the university they would like to attend and shop for the best financial aid packages.

This reminds me of a story my grandfather told me when I was a child...
During China's Warring States period a man by the name of Tian Ji was racing his best 3 horses against the State of Qi's best 3 horses. The 3 races were to match up the best horses in the 1st round, second best in the 2nd round and the 3rd best in the last round. But the King of Qi's horses are a little faster so they would always win. But the brilliant strategist Sun Zi (also the author of the "Art of War") advised Tian to match up his worst against Qi's best in round one and Tians best against Qi's 2nd best in round 2. And in round 3 Tian would race his 2nd best against Qi's slowest. Tian ends up winning the huge wager by winning 2 out 3 matches.
The moral of the story is we don't have to win EVERY match, only the ultimate success matters.

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