Is $250 Per Sq. Ft. a Fair Price for a SFR in Irvine?

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
Schools in my opinion are just there so the parents can put their kids there for the day and go to work. None of the parents I know are satisfied with the quality of education their kid is receiving, including at the most prestigious of the schools like St. Margaret. I have no plans to rely on the school to teach my kid anything. After all, kindergarten curriculum is just laughable, they teach what most kids know by 3 years of age if their parents are doing their job.

However, by sending him to a good school in Irvine, he gets to learn how to deal with different people, how to compete with kids who are smart and motivated in a relatively safe environment. If I send him to school in Santa Ana, what is he going to learn? How to speak Spanish? How to deal dope? If he goes to any less performing school, he would be deprived of an opportunity what real competition is like at grad schools and high-profile jobs. Yes, I learned from reading the forums that top 10% for any high school gets to go to the UCLA or the like. What happens to the other 90%, who do they become?
 
As for dope and schools in Irvine....you better believe it. My kid recently got picked up with some hallucinogenics....on probation now. I had a conversation about drugs with a local counselor and was told that Irvine and Newport are being targed by dealers because the kids have lots of excess cash to spend.......good marketing...



I've said this before on this blog and I will say it again.....I was a high school drop out, that ended up going to college, after 8 years of college starting at a coal miners school in western Pennsylvania, and ending up doing a postdoc at Cal Tech, I have this to say: Figure out if you kids are interested in education, if they are not, find something else for them to do. Like car mechanics, hair dressers, sales agents.......etc. Trying to force kids that don't have the grey matter to be academically successful in a subtle type of torture for both the parents and the kids.
 
In these types of discussions, people generally discount the importance of athletics.

The skills you learn on the field are priceless and aren't taught in the classroom.

Leading people, working with others, the mental toughness to perform under pressure, and learning to win and cope with defeat translate not only to success in business but also in life.
 
So ten, based on athletics....who would you suggest



Lets just say for this topics its TUSD vs. IUSD....so Northwood, irvine, Uni, Woodbro, Beckman, Tustin, or Foothill?



Then feel free to add any other schools, my guess is you will say MD
 
Ten,

I agree with you, sports and team programs are very important. It took me until I was well into my 30's to understand this.



However, the sports programs in Irvine seem to be run by rabid dogs that only want to get someone to the Olympics. While I was in Irvine, I knew many kids that were thrown off teams because they would not "commit". Many of the teams require practice 6 days a week 4 hours a day. Personally, I think the school should limit the amount of time that teams can practice to 8 hours per week..............



In general, I believe there is too much emphasis on success in the Irvine schools. The kids don't have a chance to grow up because they are too busy trying to be competing to e successful...
 
Nano, that is true about individual sports such as swimming....especially ones tied to the Novas



but I don't think this is much of a problem with team sports. The only ones thrown off the teams were the ones that frequently missed practice (usually drug/partying/going to beach reasons) and I think those were valid reasons.



And another story, I remember from high school was I had a pothead friend in an Irvine school and we ran into a couple of old friends from North OC, so either Anaheim School District or Orange School District. And that guy asked my IUSD friend if he wanted to smoke. He said sure, so the guy pulled some stuff out of his pocket, and then my IUSD student friend laughed so hard and refused to smoke it because it was "crappy weed." I distinctly remember him sharing that story back at school for the next few years always getting laugh from all the other stoners because of how much better their weed was. Not that I know what this means, but I always remember that he described at "even having seeds in it."



I will add that these same friends graduated from pot and eventually moved on to bigger and better things like the expensive stuff nano suggested. Luckily though, a good amount of these people it was just a phase and got over it, but you can imagine some people got hooked.
 
I don't think you should encourage your child to become a hairdresser or a plumber, I think it is every parent's job to make sure your kid graduates from high school and gets a college degree. With what GPA and from what college are where the difference is, depending on your child's abilities and your hopes and aspirations.

I just shiver when I hear someone tell their kids, "You can be whoever you want to be, if you don't want to go to college that's fine by me as long as you are happy." You need to teach your kids from a very early age that not going to college is simply not an option. Please don't tell me that an 18 year old is capable of understanding what will happen to him if he does not go to college. All they got on their minds is how to be cool and popular and get a date.

I've seen too many people in law school who were in their late 40s-early 50s who worked their entire life as truck drivers or plumbers or failed actors or musicians or what have you and then it hit them that they could have had a better life, and here they are, competing with 20 year olds for the entry-level positions. Where were their parents?

As to the athletics, especially for a boy, I'd be delighted if my son gets picked for his school's football team or basketball or whatever, this is how you become popular, well-adjusted, and form friendships that last a lifetime. And this is a misconception that if a kid is good at athletics, he is destined to have 2.0 GPA, and vice versa. I do know several people who have grad degrees from Ivy League schools and played football or basketball in high school and college.

And for those of you who did not advance past high school and still got rich and successful, more power to you, it means you are a good enterpreneur, it is just not everyone has that ability, so the more conventional path of going to college and getting a job is the ticket to success for majority of people.
 
blackacre - that's a tough one. I am ambivalent about it. I went straight from high school to college to grad school. I was and am happy enough. But sometimes I wish I would have delayed college and tried acting or playing in a band. Those are things you have a much better chance of succeeding at if you start young. You can always go back to college to learn to write software or something.



I also know several people who have careers that have nothing to do with their college degrees. Those 18-year-olds you mention sometimes have trouble knowing at 18 what they might want to do for a career for the next 20 years. Maybe those people would be better off not spending $100k on a college education they won't use. Instead, they can work for a few years, make some money while discovering who they are, and then go to college if they want.



The trouble with either route is that you don't get to go back and do it over. Stupid lack of time travel super power...grrr......
 
[quote author="graphrix" date=1222354682]Anyway, I know of more people who have come from sh*tty school districts that are in awesome jobs, than I do people from my "great" high school who were "great".</blockquote>


That's because the people from great high schools who are doing great are doing so much better than you. They don't run in your middling circles. They have gates and drivers and security people that keep people like you away from people like them. %-P
 
[quote author="ABC123" date=1222406482]What's wrong with being a plumber? They make good money and they have a skill that will always be in demand.</blockquote>


Yeah, I met a guy who gave up a good-paying, white collar job to start a business installing water heaters. He said he made more money and worked fewer hours.
 
I think trade schools are undervalued. When I was very young I took ROP courses to learn a skill and land a job. If you have a specific skill then you are not as easily replaced by someone else. When I was done I was making more than my friend who had earned an undergrad degree. If my boys are not interested in college I would not push them. It's something they have to want to do. I refuse to pay tuition, books, etc so my kids can party and sit in class and socialize while flunking. If a kid wants to learn a trade then why not. It's still a valuable set of skills, just obtained in a different way. What if he wants to be a firefighter? He won't need a 4-year degree. I didn't go back to college until several years later but by then I knew what to purse and was passionate about it - I got all A's. You have to have the drive - your parents can't have it for you. Not enough kids in O.C. attend The School of Hard Knocks and miss out on the valuable lessons only that can teach. That's my .02.
 
Can't help myself, gotta point out the flaw in some of the above arguments-you are operating on a premise that when you go to college you would learn some sort of valuable skill that is supposed to help you in life. I think that most colleges and grad schools are just to broaden your horizons, to know who Mozart is, and where the heck is Finland, to get some sort of general overview of life.

Take law school-we had very few classes that taught us a specific skill like how to sit down and write an awesome appellate brief, but we had a bunch of classes where studied some stupid precedents that nobody except law professors cared about b/c they have been overruled and not a good law anymore... I thought it was completely pointless until recently, when I realized that I acquired the most valuable skill of all-to see both sides to everything and be able to argue them, just to have a critical mind. Going back to my plumber example, he might make more money that some college grads, but fixing toilets is not particularly enlightening. I doubt that people of manual labor visit art galleries, museums, or know a thing or too about fine wines and foods or able to maintain an intelligent conversation about virtually any subject thrown their way. Ask around, there is also plenty of women who would never date a guy without the bachelor's degree, why limit your options :)

Some kids just know what they want in life and want to go to college, and some just need a little push from their parents. I don't know if your kid or my kid would study hard and get good grades there or just party, but at least I'm going to take my chances and send him to get higher education.

Anyway, I guess I managed to hijack my own thread :) Oh well, I'll just wait until the prices in Irvine drop to $225 like Irvine Renter predicted and buy a house. Close to a good school, mind you...
 
[quote author="blackacre-seeker" date=1222401555]I don't think you should encourage your child to become a hairdresser or a plumber, I think it is every parent's job to make sure your kid graduates from high school and gets a college degree. With what GPA and from what college are where the difference is, depending on your child's abilities and your hopes and aspirations.

I just shiver when I hear someone tell their kids, "You can be whoever you want to be, if you don't want to go to college that's fine by me as long as you are happy." You need to teach your kids from a very early age that not going to college is simply not an option. Please don't tell me that an 18 year old is capable of understanding what will happen to him if he does not go to college. All they got on their minds is how to be cool and popular and get a date.

I've seen too many people in law school who were in their late 40s-early 50s who worked their entire life as truck drivers or plumbers or failed actors or musicians or what have you and then it hit them that they could have had a better life, and here they are, competing with 20 year olds for the entry-level positions. Where were their parents?

As to the athletics, especially for a boy, I'd be delighted if my son gets picked for his school's football team or basketball or whatever, this is how you become popular, well-adjusted, and form friendships that last a lifetime. And this is a misconception that if a kid is good at athletics, he is destined to have 2.0 GPA, and vice versa. I do know several people who have grad degrees from Ivy League schools and played football or basketball in high school and college.

And for those of you who did not advance past high school and still got rich and successful, more power to you, it means you are a good enterpreneur, it is just not everyone has that ability, so the more conventional path of going to college and getting a job is the ticket to success for majority of people.</blockquote>


Knowledge from college is seldom used in a workplace. Most employers do not expect their staff to perform job with academic aptitude. A college degree is merely a one liner information on ones resume but employers do weight heavily on its impression. most without it would never make it to the interview. In order to advance in ones career one would have to change jobs. Having that degree in very important on the resume. Many companies today contract background check consultant to verify potential employee's credentials. Many do lie on their resume. Some without a degree do get into good companies by relationship and recommendations but mobility is very limited in exploring other career advancements.
 
"I doubt that people of manual labor visit art galleries, museums, or know a thing or too about fine wines and foods or able to maintain an intelligent conversation about virtually any subject thrown their way."



That is an incredibly offensive, narrow-minded and elitist thing to say let alone think. Is the measure of a man how many art galleries he visits? Not everybody has the same opportunities in life that you may have had and they make the best of it. It's not a reflection of their intelligence nor do I believe there is an accurate way to measure "intelligence". Some of the brightest and most worldly people I know don't have a formal education and vice versa (I have a friend who immigrated a few years ago from Tunisia and is well-versed on most everything because he has traveled the world although he currently works as a airport taxi driver... and I have a friend with an MBA from USC who doesn't know SHIT about life in general. My own dad had to drop out of school at age 14 because his father died and he had to support his mom and 5 siblings. He is very interested in the world around him -- despite being a DUMB blue-collared worker, a warehouseman for 40 years! He provided for his family and learned about life the hard way without anybody giving him hand-outs like these spoiled OC brats.) Sorry but your comment really struck me. I have read your posts and you usually like a reasonable person - that just shocked the hell out of me. With all due respect, you need to get out more.
 
[quote author="SoCal78" date=1222428837]"I doubt that people of manual labor visit art galleries, museums, or know a thing or too about fine wines and foods or able to maintain an intelligent conversation about virtually any subject thrown their way."



That is an incredibly offensive, narrow-minded and elitist thing to say let alone think. Is the measure of a man how many art galleries he visits? Not everybody has the same opportunities in life that you may have had and they make the best of it. It's not a reflection of their intelligence nor do I believe there is an accurate way to measure "intelligence". Some of the brightest and most wordly people I know don't have a formal education and vice versa (I have a friend who immigrated a few years ago from Tunisia and is well-versed on most everything because he has traveled the world although he currently works as a airport taxi driver... and I have a friend with an MBA from USC who doesn't know SHIT about life in general. My own dad had to drop out of school at age 14 because his father died and he had to support his mom and 5 siblings. He is very interested in the world around him -- despite being a DUMB blue-collared worker, a warehouseman for 40 years! He provided for his family and learned about life the hard way without anybody giving him hand-outs like these spoiled OC brats.) Sorry but your comment really struck me. I have read your posts and you usually like a reasonable person - that just shocked the hell out of me. With all due respect, you need to get out more.</blockquote>


Peter Jennings for example, had no college degree but was extremely well read and appreciative of fine arts, museums, and jazz music. He was also very intelligent.
 
Sorry if my opinion offended you. I'm the first in my family to go to college and grad school, and unfortunately I know firsthand what I'm talking about here since I'm speaking about my closest relatives who were far from being enlightened. I'm not saying they are somehow bad or inferior, however, their interests in life are limited in my view and they could definitely benefit from getting a college degree. Some of my high school friends did not go to college and took manual labor jobs, and when I meet them accidentally, we have nothing in common, nothing to talk about. Interestingly enough, I know many people who don't have a college degree, yet push their kids into college. That I truly admire.

You know why most celebrities end up in rehab? B/c most of them never advanced past high school. Granted, Hugh Grant is a notable exception, but most of celebrities who did go to college are married to the same person for a long time and never get into trouble...

What I'm advocating here is that everybody should strive to send their kids to college, not that we need to look down at people who don't have such opportunities.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top