My high school Acalanes of Lafayette, CA is ranked 382nd of the top high schools in America according to Newsweek. They devised the score from a combination of AP tests and the percentage of graduating seniors. So is this the reason that my parents moved my sister and me out of a predominantly asian working class community when I was 7 to this more affluent, more snotty predominantly Caucasian city?
Although I must admit, I have to attribute a lot of my skills to the educational system there. Despite the fact that I felt like an outsider (probably not only due to my ethnicity but also just my natural social awkwardness), I did develop analytical skills…and easily got 4s or 5s in the APs. I am biased of course. I only conclude this because at Berkeley, I noticed that people who came from some urban high schools…struggled with some courses whereas I (and people from other affluent areas) just breezed through them. What does this mean though? This surely provides evidence that high school is important for one\’s education. Even if it\’s a place that we all want to forget, the structure, the groundwork is built there for the future. And obviously, money always plays a major role in getting that great education.