Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They're all important. Plus, if you buy in a pyramid where one level seems to be ok but the others aren't, it's usually just a matter of time before the cancer that has infected the area feeding into that school metasticizes into the other schools in the pyramid. Bad schools in this area are largely a result of too many poor and/or ESL immigrants. First one school in the pyramid and then the others. Best to get out before it's too late.

I was that poor esl kid. I'm probably infesting your neigborhood.

Me too! Doing very well now though.

High school hands down.

Anonymous wrote:High school. There's actually a lot of empirical research on this.

There is? Please share.

Anonymous wrote:They're all important. Plus, if you buy in a pyramid where one level seems to be ok but the others aren't, it's usually just a matter of time before the cancer that has infected the area feeding into that school metasticizes into the other schools in the pyramid. Bad schools in this area are largely a result of too many poor and/or ESL immigrants. First one school in the pyramid and then the others. Best to get out before it's too late.

I was that poor esl kid. I'm probably infesting your neigborhood.

High school. That's where serious studying starts.
(Back in a day when I went to school in northern Europe it was all about last year of high school.)

Really depends on your kid.

They're all important. Plus, if you buy in a pyramid where one level seems to be ok but the others aren't, it's usually just a matter of time before the cancer that has infected the area feeding into that school metasticizes into the other schools in the pyramid. Bad schools in this area are largely a result of too many poor and/or ESL immigrants. First one school in the pyramid and then the others. Best to get out before it's too late.

High school. It is easy to supplement in elementary school and not that difficult to supplement in middle school.

Middle school.

That is when major peer pressure first hits and when kids start to veer off track. Parent input matters so much less than peer input at that age, and kids really start to develop their own identities based off peer approval instead of teacher and parent approval.

If the middle school is strong and the kid identifies with a strong peer group, that is more likely to carry over to high school. Even average high schools can have a core group of strong students focused on college and achievement.

The top rich high schools are sometimes too pressure filled, or have large groupd of kids with too permissive parents and access to more ways to get in trouble.

High school. That's what colleges look at. If your elementary isn't awesome, small kids are still malleable and you can supplement at home or with Kumon or whatever. Middle school is a wash academic wise; that's just a 3 year sanatorium. High school is what counts.

Look at the Va school report cards and see how kids in your child's demographics do. A lot of times the score for the school is low b/c there are certain kids not doing well and others who are doing great.

and I would argue that the ranking are BS. You can't have a good HS if the elementary are crap. Also what we consider "bad" isn't really all that bad nationally.

High school. There's actually a lot of empirical research on this.

High school matters the most, since that is all that pertains to college admissions. But it is a balance, of course, since elemen and middle provide the foundation for doing well.

I grew up in a low income area and did not have the opportunities that some of my peers in college had academically. If you were looking at buying and noticed that one pyramid had a lower ranked elementary school but strong middle and high schools vs one with a strong elementary school but lower ranked middle and high school. Does the foundation matter more than the high school you graduate from and how weak or strong their college counselor may be at helping you with college recommendations, school reputation etc..? Or does it all rely on what type of foundation you gained academically in elementary to succeed in middle and high with strong grades?