Tourbillon,
To my knowledge, the UCs are actually moving away from the SAT as the focal point of determining undergrad admissions. For Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc, a near perfect SAT score is almost a prerequisite, so their adcomms focus on the things that make a kid "special." As a Cal grad, I know that Berkeley's adcomm did away with the SAT + GPA formula back in the late 90s and moved toward a "holistic" approach - probably a response to the elimination of affirmative action. Some other UCs (UCLA) followed suit, while others like UCSD maintain a formula.
As a result, admissions in the past few years from what I hear have been somewhat erratic for UCLA and Cal at least. When my younger sister graduated from Irvine High around 5 years ago, she got into Stanford, UCLA and UCSD, but to my surprise, was rejected from Berkeley's Bio-Engineering program. She had a near perfect SAT (upper 1500s back in the 1600 scoring system) and perfect GPA. She also had excellent ECs (extracurriculars in admissions parlance) - county/state awards for stuff. I've also heard about various family friends whose kids got into Berkeley, but were rejected from UCLA. This Tidal Wave II (whatever they call this new population bump) has created a logjam in the pipeline to the UCs. The UC adcomms have much more qualified students then they know what to do with, so nothing is really guaranteed even with "perfect" test scores and GPAs.
I agree with OCR that parental involvement is the single most important factor in determining your kids' success. (I posted my thoughts on this in a post a few months back). To expand on OCR's other point, schools are also important. Of course, you have many stories like Tourbillon of kids going to less than desirable primary education schools and succeeding later in life, but in today's admissions game, every little thing helps - and what "good" schools can provide are good teachers (really good teachers are few and far between in my experiences) and a wide selection of AP courses. From what I remember, Newsweek's API ranking of public high schools used to be based mainly on the AP tests, which are sort of useless in my opinion (they used to base the criteria on how many AP tests with a score of 3 or higher - a pass, which is pretty easy to do - so the more tests being taken, the higher the API ranking). The final thing that predicts a kid's success is basically their own competitive drive and sheer talent/brainpower- competitiveness is something you might be able to instill early in your kids, but good ole genetics determine the rest. And even if they are smart and talented, do they have the mental fortitude to avoid burning out? Who knows.
On the final point of "Asian style teaching," I understand what Tourbillon is talking about in terms of the rote memorization, math drills, and heavy emphasis on passing standardized entrance exams. The common criticism is that this education paradigm stifles "thinking outside of the box," and it is probably true to a degree - an Economist article that I read back talked about how Chinese engineers/ PhD students were excellent in the theory and fundamentals, but didn't know how to apply them to real world situations. On the other hand, you have Craig Barrett, Bill Gates, and Irvine's own Henry Samueli venting how the US education system is failing to churn out the necessary scientists and engineers to fuel our technological progress, and how the US should basically give a visa to any immigrant with a Masters or PhD in science and engineering. Where are most of those immigrants coming from? India and China ("Asian style teaching" countries). Also, no one can accuse Japan, which is notorious for its emphasis on entrance exams of not thinking outside the box. See Toyota/Lexus(self-parking LS, hybrids), Nintendo(Wii), Honda (robotics), Sony (um...not a good track record as of late, but good history of innovation).
To answer the original poster's question - as a product of the school system here (80s through 90s), in my opinion, the schools are pretty good, but not STELLAR. What makes them good? The teachers. Obviously, your mileage may vary from subject to subject, so it's probably important to know who are the star teachers in the area. Usually, (but I stress NOT ALL THE TIME) they are the ones teaching the AP/honors courses.
As an engineer, I'm not sure Irvine's school system is conducive to churning out people in my profession (computer science, physics), but I think it is pretty good in the bio/ medical field. I think the closest thing that I got to a technology education back in school was playing Oregon Trail on a Apple IIe. The physics teachers I had were lackluster in generating enthusiasm and interest in the subject. I would say Nor Cal does a better job at doing that - but then again, it's probably due to the high concentration of engineering parents (and teachers) there.
I think I wrote too much. Hope something helps.
