<p>Agree with doubleplay.
Chedva, your comments are mostly on target.<br>
Looking back and questioning one's choices is not a useful exercise. That's true regardless of whether you went with the value option or the most expensive. Unless of course, things aren't working out and you need to find an alternative.
My point has been, that for our family at least, it was important to carefully look at a our our options when the decision was being made. Not block out certain choices due to a prestige factor - or because certain options were cheap and therefore couldn't possibly be good. I have a pretty flexible kid though...so we're lucky I guess. In our case, we actually preferred a more expensive option, but he went with his heart, and he is happy. And so are we.</p>
<p>Speaking of AP vs regular high school classes-
I'm speaking from the perspective of having sent two kids through private secondary high schools, where they received a wonderful education that prepared them well for beyond. Yet somehow the kids who were going to the local public managed to get a good education too. We had friends at public school that were NMF, went off to Ivy or near-Ivy schools, took APs in the double digits, etc. The higher level of education was available at the public school, but there were choices to be made. At my kids' private, there was no choice- everyone took honors or AP. The outcome for the higher-achieving students was the same, however. In all the years my kids went to the private school (7-12), there never was one Presidential Scholar from their school. There were many from the local publics. </p>
<p>You did have to be careful about avoiding one or two of the local public schools- the very lowest performing ones. But as far as the better publics and public schools of choice/IB programs- you couldn't go wrong.</p>
<p>Each of us has to decide what is in the best interest of our student. What is right for one person, isn't right for the next. Each decision is multi-faceted, taking into account the individual needs and personalities of our children. We each have a set of criteria that we want our children to come away with from their college experience. This will be different for each of us and vary by child. The overall 'value' of a given education is subjective in many ways. It is a product of each of our backgrounds, life experiences, and circumstances. No blanket statement can be made on any institution or group of institutions. Also, there should be no need to rationalize or defend our personal decisions to anyone. We made the decisions based on our 'value systems' with which we should all be comfortable.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My point has been, that for our family at least, it was important to carefully look at a our our options when the decision was being made. Not block out certain choices due to a prestige factor - or because certain options were cheap and therefore couldn't possibly be good. I have a pretty flexible kid though...so we're lucky I guess. In our case, we actually preferred a more expensive option, but he went with his heart, and he is happy. And so are we.
[/quote]
toneranger, you've summed up our situation exactly. We ended up with the more expensive option as well, but we as a family decided it was worth it. D went with her heart, to the place at which she felt most comfortable. She is happy, and so are we. And if we had to do it again (we have only one child, which also changes the equation), we'd do it the same way.</p>
<p>Our family also did not go with the least expensive option. But, of course, we didn't go with the most expensive one either. We chose one that presented good opportunities with one that fit our family's circumstances.</p>
<p>I certainly don't see anything wrong with my analysis of restaurants. I certainly did not intend to insult the patrons who go to Stone's. I certainly mentioned quite a few really good things about Stone's. As someone pointed out the menu at Stone's is indeed much larger than at John's. They even have free beer nuts, great buffalo wings, and you can get ethnic foods such as chow mein and taco salad. John's doesn't have any of these. I should also point out that we were not able to get a reservation at the fancy French restaurant that toneranger goes to. That is just as well. Those French are stuck up. I can barely read the menu. Who even wants to eat snails, frog legs and turtle soup? Lots of people go out to have fun. Lots of people do go to Stone's because it is fun and not just because of the food. Everyone has a different idea of the importance of food and the menu choices and how food should be cooked. If you can't afford it or really don't care that much about food, don't go to John's. If you want to drink a few beers and root for the home team, you probably don't want to go to John's. If you want a really fancy restaurant maybe you should try to get the reservation at the French restaurant. There are plenty of other choices. There are some small specialty restaurants. If you look hard enough you can hope to find one with reasonable prices and food you will really like.</p>
<p>Don't give up easily do you? OK, we get it. Students at public schools get the 'beer nuts, wings, tacos and eggrolls', because they're really not interested in quality. Nice image you paint of professors at public university- slopping fish sticks and greasy hamburgers- bet they appreciate it too. If you don't really care about education- don't go to private college; go to public instead. That's your message. We get it. Why don't you come out and just say it instead of trying to be coy?</p>
<p>I can see occasions where I would go to John's. I can see occasions where I would go to Stone's. I also can see occasions where I would go elsewhere. I personally would never go to the French Restaurant....I have too healthy an appetite.</p>
<p>Personally, I prefer to cook at home. I have worked in restaurants and know what goes on in some kitchens. (Am I implying home schooling?)</p>
<p>OK. Let's leave the restaurant analogy and use a different one: houses.</p>
<p>You're house hunting. Two houses sit side by side. Same street, same town, same school district, same square footage, same # of bathrooms, etc. Different style houses. Same price. You walk into House A. It's OK. You walk into House B, and can really see yourself living there. You've even started placing your furniture in your mind. Does this make House B "better" than House A? No, not objectively, but it does for you.</p>
<p>Now let's say that House B is $15,000 more than House A. You can't say why, but you really, really like House B better than House A. Do you pay the extra $15,000? Maybe. Now you start weighing other issues. What's the layout of the house? What does the extra $15K do to the taxes? To your mortgage payments? Can you finagle a mortgage with some different terms to reduce the payments, or can you make those payments with only some minor belt tightening? How much is your "happiness" worth? For you, House B may still be the better "value." For someone else, not so much.</p>
<p>Now let's say that House B, in addition to being $15,000 more expensive, has only a one-car garage, while House A has a two-car garage. How does that variable fit into the equation? Do you have more than one car? Do you care about garages? And so on. For you, House B may still be the better "value" because you "feel at home" there, while someone else may really need the two car garage, or be at the financial stage at which the extra $15,000 is a real hardship.</p>
<p>Neither House A nor House B are objectively necessarily "better" than the other. One just meets your particular needs better, even though neither is perfect.</p>
<p>That's how we approached the college process. Once we had a list of acceptable schools to apply to, one college wasn't objectively, in every variable, better than another. One college was weak in one area; another was strong in that area but weak in a different one. There were trade offs. In the end, because it wasn't a financial "breaker", we went with the equivalent of House B. Maybe d would have gotten used to House A, but we'll never know. And as of now, we have no regrets.</p>
<p>And here's another perspective. I love french food but can't stand the prices and could do without the prestige (just not neccessary for my enjoyment). So ? What to do? Well, you search out "the best french bistro not in Paris". Cheap merlot. Daily specials. Reasonable serving sizes. Eclectic mix of patrons. Entertaining area. Waitpeople can be ..uuhhh...a little pre-occupied with Kant or Camus. Neighboring tables may be a little "goofed" but hey, that's life and you put up with a couple of "not so positive " things for the food. And what food it is! I loved the place for a long time. Maybe you can find one, too and if you do, tell somebody about it. Mine closed in '97. Sometimes you can get a lot more than you paid for . Keep Austin weird. Viva "les amis".</p>
<p>The</a> Austin Chronicle: Screens: Remembrance of Things Weird: Nancy Higgins' 'Viva Les Amis'</p>
<p>Curm
When I was living in CA, the local French bistro had 2-for-1 every tuesday night, and half priced wines that night.</p>
<p>Never made it to Les Amis, but loved Liberty Lunch, mentioned in the article.</p>
<p>I wish Austin could stay weird. sigh.</p>
<p>Cost introduces a very complicated dimension, whether choosing a restaurant or a college. One S does not care for Indian food, the other loves it. Neither wants to dress up to go out to eat. No one in the family wants to drive far to eat. etc...So even without the issue of cost, there are decisions to be made.<br>
The same with choosing a college. Even though cost was not factored in, Ss chose two different types of school. One chose a LAC 2 hours away, the other a mid-sized university 20 minutes walk away. S2 decided against some wonderful schools on the basis of location (suburban) weather (not enough snow) general atmosphere (one seemed too laid back to him) curriculum (did not care for the core at two schools on his --er, my--list), size (this eliminated some great state schools). It does not mean that all the schools he objected to are inferior to the one he chose. Just different. Like Indian food vs. sushi.</p>
<p>curmudgeon</p>
<p>Yep-- a state school environment can have "something for everyone." Dirty's "Martin's Kum Back Place" Drive In is still there (my Father told me it was there when he attended UT in 1929) and and so is Jeffrey's (with at least one waiter who has been there since the 1970s when it opened while I was at UT). I loved Les Amis too.</p>
<p>Let's do a grocery store analogy...</p>
<p>The other day, I went grocery shopping. I stopped off at Store A and purchased bonless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.99/pound. I also stopped off at Store B. As I was walking past the meat counter, I noticed that Store B's boneless, skinless chicken breasts were $3.99/pound and they had a shorter expiration date.</p>
<p>Hmmm...should I have assumed that Store B's boneless, skinless chicken breasts (despite its shorter expiration date) were twice as good as Store A's. </p>
<p>The point being...sometimes price is not indicative of what one is actually purchasing but of what one perceives he or she is purchasing. </p>
<p>Also, from a purely economic point of view, price is determined by the supply (number of spaces availabe) and demand (number of applications) curve for the commodity (the school). If demand outweighs supply, the market attempts to make a correction by increasing price (tuition). So, if an institution is perceived by the market to be better than other institutions, price (tuition) can be increased. So, theoretically, there is a point at which the cost (tuition) of an institution can exceed the value of the degree it confers. One of the negative concequences of this can occur when families take out HUGE lones to pay for that dream school.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, when we talk about different types of restaurants or different types of colleges, we have different choices in different parts of the country. If I was like some posters who live in California, I would be pretty happy about the State U's. By any definition, many of them are very good - way beyond the level of buffalo wings and beer nuts. That is not true in most of the rest of the country.</p>
<p>too silly.........</p>
<p>
[quote]
The film also looks at Les Amis Caf</p>
<p>xig, my young friend, the les amis of my memory has me seated next to a State Rep from West Texas resplendent with hat and buckle, dining with an obviously counterculture grad student, next to a table of tourists, next to a table with a local family of 5, next to...well...it was a great place to be. Not just for the "freaks". Admittedly, I was there for dinner, not late night. That was usually Katz's(neverkloses) Deli. So maybe I missed something. Could be. </p>
<p>My wife, a life-long Austinite (till marriage) and proud graduate of John H. Reagan High School, can't bear the sight of her hometown anymore. So much is changed but such is the nature of progress and youthful memory.</p>
<p>Xig - As always I enjoy you clear and concisely enunciated point of view. But I'd like to "flesh out" the '60s, '70s, and '80's counter cultures with a historically based point of view. (Yeah, I'm that old.) The '50s were a wonderful time --- for conformists. If on the other hand, you felt "duck and cover" was a ridicuous response to nuclear attack, McCarthyism was anti-American, or women should have aspirations beyond Donna Reed's offering, then the '50s weren't so wonderful. The counter cultures of the '60s and '70s served many groups, many of which are now considered mainstream. Some people lament the passing of failed counter culture initiatives, some don't. But IMO it's important that our society retain it's counter culture spirit. After all, Starbucks itself was a counter culture initiative --- Folgers and Maxwell House were considered good coffee until SBUX came around. Peace.</p>