<p>Great point UCB!</p>
<p>I like the Atlantic Article on Orchids and Dandelions.</p>
<p>[The</a> Science of Success - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-success/7761/]The”>The Science of Success - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>How about “tomatoes; heirlooms vs hybrids”.</p>
<p>Turns out my kids were “Early Girl” and “Better Boy”. Still hoping for “Sungold” and “Brandy Boy”.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap…very interesting article. This part particularly made me think</p>
<p>…Rhesus monkeys typically mature at about four or five years and live to about 20 in the wild. Their development parallels our own at a fairly neat 1-to-4 ratio: a 1-year-old monkey is much like a 4-year-old human being, a 4-year-old monkey is like a 16-year-old human being, and so on. …</p>
<p>It would seem that this argues for placing a much much higher value on the years BEFORE college. That once mature little change can be affected. Personally, I’ve been more worried about the ‘right’ HS atmosphere than the college atmosphere. So much development takes place in those years…maybe we need to start a HS Confidential!</p>
<p>I also have a problem with attending a private school which may be better then the local public school,yet,beating the drum how a student can leran in ALMOST any school regardless of costs…i guess that doesn’t work at the HS level…</p>
<p>Magnet schools are public schools.</p>
<p>But you pay a fee to attend, at least in annasdad case…so free isn’t as good as pay apparently?.and that makes the whole case he presents B$</p>
<p>The original question was:</p>
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</p>
<p>The answer seems to be, summarizing 30 pages of posts, “it depends.” </p>
<p>Here’s what I’ve learned from reading these posts and doing my own “research”:</p>
<ul>
<li>There are successful people who went to state schools that, gasp, weren’t even flagships!</li>
<li>If you want to be a Supreme Court justice, best to go to HYPS. (I think I got those initials right.)</li>
<li>My BF went to the University of Chicago. I went to the University of Nebraska. When we argue about the correct pronunciation of a word, I am right 9 times out of 10. </li>
<li>Oprah went to Tennessee State University. David Letterman went to Ball State University. They’re successful! </li>
<li>Some people who can afford it will spend $50K a year on an elite school for their kids, and some who can’t afford it will try to do the same thing. People will do both of these things for reasons of their own, with varying results.</li>
</ul>
<p>absweetmarie…</p>
<p>bingo…this is an issue about which people of good will- will continue to disagree. As long as one can remain clear thinking and not fall under the peer, society, media, keeping up with the Jones’ next door panic spell, the kids will be alright.</p>
<p>AND… make sure the younguns reflect on how life during their 20’s and 30’s most likely will be if they are either saddled with debt or pursuing the high stress /potential high reward positions to which the elites supposedly grant easy access. Careful what you wish for, you just may get it ;)</p>
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<p>I don’t know about that magnet high school…but the one I attended and its NYC peers are all free. Got a rigorous…actually overwhelmingly so education with highly motivated and intelligent peers…and it was all completely free. Moreover…our math offerings go well-beyond pre-calculus…you can take differential equations as a 9th grader if you are ready. In fact…if that’s the next course in the sequence for that student…he/she MUST take it along with 2-2.5 additional years worth of math to fulfill my high school’s minimum 3 year math requirement. Same goes with other subjects/fields.</p>
<p>Comparing the costs of housing and feeding a high schooler, I’m thinking that $2860 a year for magnet boarding school is a bargain. The savings on gas and water alone (for those 20 minute showers :mad:) would be a good chunk of that. 
:D</p>
<p>absweetmarie, one more lesson: the human brain is remarkably good at rationalizing the choices it makes, once those choices are made. 
And thank heavens for that, otherwise life would be pretty unbearable.</p>
<p>Finally, the Wall Street Journal had an article on cool new cutting-edge trends on what one can do with house automation. My favorite:
</p>
<p>I’ve been telling D1 and D2 that instead of them going to college, we could install an automatic fish tank. They didn’t seem to buy into the concept. ;)</p>
<p>Regarding the original question… someone later in the thread mentioned that the OP’s other posts indicated that the choice was between Brown (the expensive elite university) and McGill (the cheap public university), for majoring in math (none of this was mentioned by the OP in the first post of this thread).</p>
<p>A very small number of replies after that addressed that specific situation.</p>
<p>But the vast majority of the posts since then were the same type of generalized or overgeneralized arguments one way or the other, like the posts before. Even if it was not an intentional ■■■■■ post, it sure seemed to have the effect of such.</p>
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<p>From what I’ve heard about McGill…they’re considered one of the Canadian equivalents of the US’ most elite universities. </p>
<p>Granted, I’m not sure about that…but every Canadian or someone who knows Canadian schools has said McGill is a highly elite school in its own right…not merely a “cheap public university”. Heck…that’s like saying UC Berkeley, UMich, UVA and other topflight public universities are merely “cheap public universities”. Doesn’t remotely do any of them justice. </p>
<p>Unless I’m operating under bad information…McGill and Brown are close enough in academic reputation that it’s really going to turn on expense, differences of campus/cultural environments, etc.</p>
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</p>
<p>Where is this?</p>
<p>Top Chef Nyesha on Culinary School
<a href=“http://discoverlosangeles.com/play/dining/la-chefs/nyesha-arrington-top-chef-texas-wilshire-restaurant.html[/url]”>http://discoverlosangeles.com/play/dining/la-chefs/nyesha-arrington-top-chef-texas-wilshire-restaurant.html</a>
“Where do you stand on culinary school? I know you’re a graduate.
I had a good experience. I had great instructors, but some of those same instructors were complained about by students because they were too harsh. Being on this side, I have not seen a lot of difference between culinary schools of different calibers in comparison to a kid who started as a dishwasher. I think a lot of kids going into culinary school think they are going to learn real world experiences and become chefs, but that takes so long. If I could tell myself ten years ago what I know now, I would not have gone to culinary school. I would not be in debt and I learned most of my techniques in restaurants. My real world experience outweighs [what I learned in culinary school]. Culinary school costs a lot and you don’t make a lot of money in this business.”</p>
<p>2860 dollars is not free, as public schools are…so people that can not afford that sum,mau feel that annasdadi is a bs artsist espousing his opinion about pricey schools vis a vie public state schools…lIt is ALL relative</p>
<p>qdogpa - using iPad? Sorry, just read that you were using iPad.</p>
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<p>Yes, but most people here seem to assume that if you use the generic term “public school”, the public school in question is nowhere near McGill (or Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia, etc.). That underlying assumption (in the absence of the names of the specific schools) meant that the original post ■■■■■■■ up hundreds of prestige-war posts using the generic assumption, rather than a much smaller number of posts discussing the actual schools in question.</p>
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<p>Agree here.</p>
<p>Oldfort, difficult to type using IPAD,lol…many typos…</p>
<p>Bottom line is – the line between what’s reasonable and good to spend, and throwing money away, corresponds exactly to what Annasdad can afford.</p>
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<p>Yes, I’ve been very careful to qualify my statements, so that I don’t get beyond the evidence I’ve cited.</p>
<p>An unmotivated student will not get a good education at any college, no matter how prestigious the name on the piece of paper. A motivated student, on the other hand, can get a high quality education at almost any college. There may be colleges where this does not apply = the only ones I personally know of are those where the college exists primarily to advance a particular religious agenda, but these may well be others.</p>
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<p>I won’t attempt to characterize their claims. My understanding of them is somewhat different that what you state, but I’d rather let them explain their own views than try to do it for them.</p>