re: Parents of the OT, would you move away for your kids?

quote:

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I think people don’t understand that even these public schools have limits on capacity. It ain’t easy to say do better if there’s no space to accept your kid. Some of these schools with a lot of… a specific demographic are ruthless academically and can’t compete

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Yeah, but the formula isn't only the top 10% of students get accepted into state schools. Those kids are guaranteed a spot but there's still room for otherwise qualified students who have good grades and standardized test scores. So kids ranked 11-30% are still probably getting in somewhere at most high schools and maybe even the top half from the best schools.

Put another way - your kid isn't necessarily competing against the top 10 at their elite school full of "hard workers" with "overbearing parents". They are competing against the top 10 from some crappy school in the sticks or the ghetto where some of the kids are in the top 10% but otherwise don't have the grades to make the cut. And even then, your kid's grades would have to be borderline by admission standards to push them out.

So it's a narrow window to aim at. I wouldn't uproot my family and change their social environment just to try to game that small window. I would make sure my kid studied and worked hard enough to stay out of the Wait List range so they could get in on merit. That's not a tall order for Texas public universities.