<p>We live in NYC and at the end of the totally lunatic queen-of-hearts public high school admissions process, my daughter had a choice between a gigantic academically rigorous school that admits students via an exam, and a tiny school with an emphasis on marine careers that was about to start its first year at a newly-renovated island campus where they would grow oysters, learn SCUBA and all kinds of other neat stuff.</p>
<p>My daughter is now a junior at the larger school and I am very glad. She is in the middle of the pack, but she’s learning a huge amount and is already taking AP classes 3 and 4. I am sure she would have been at the top of the class at the other school, and she’d have absolutely no problem taking every single top-level class given there. But she would not have been as well-prepared for college work, I’m sure of that.</p>