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Comment by throwup238 | Hacker News Reader

Or, he goes to the polytechnic high school that’s right next to Caltech (half a block from the astronomy building no less) and getting research experience there is much easier than a regular high school.

Looks like he went to Pasadena High School though. When I did a bit of aerospace research at Caltech in high school all I did was cold email professors so any kid around here with some initiative and smarts can get connected.

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And indeed, that's exactly what happened [0]: the kid in the OP was in a rigorous research program for high schoolers, which connected their talents to PIs who could nurture and support them. GP shouldn't reactively tear down the success of exceptionally talented kids because of their own unfortunate n=1 life experience.

[0] https://www.justinmath.com/math-academys-eurisko-sequence-5-...

The criticism is of the spin in these articles. The experience these kids get is great, it should happen more. The articles always spin to get your attention, and the subject matter is fascinating, but it can be presented with less spin.

And frankly any kid deserves praise for doing the unglamorous work that this takes. Very few can be arsed to put up with the extra work that it takes to do anything worthwhile, we are a nation getting lazier every day.

> exceptionally talented kids

Good euphemism for wealthy parents

$50,000 a year high school tuition can make anyone exceptionally talented

Pasadena High School, where Matteo went to school, is public.

Not all high school educations are created equal - See Carmel High School (Carmel, IN), New Trier High School (Winnetka, IL), or any other High School in a densely high wealth area.

While Pasadena is a relatively wealthy city, historically there has been significant avoidance of its public schools by affluent residents: https://southerneducation.org/in-the-news/new-polling-data-f...

Pasadena school district spends $28K / student for their total $390M expenditures across ~14k students in 2023-2024 school year. I would bet dollars to doughnuts it's $30k+ per high school student since they are more expensive.

The data says this is not true. Quality of education has almost no effect on lifetime income outcomes when you control for initial test scores.

Do you have a source on this? That’s really interesting if true.

Sure. There are many studies but here is one.

Will Dobbie & Roland Fryer (NBER)

This study uses regression-discontinuity around exam cutoffs at Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, and Stuyvesant. It finds increased rigor of coursework but little impact on SAT scores, college enrollment, or college graduation, which are key predictors of lifetime earnings (and typically closely linked to earnings outcomes).

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17286/w172...

The schools studied in that paper are free, or close to free. Not $50,000 per anum And I don't think OP was suggesting it's the quality of education that affects outcomes in attendees of expensive private high schools.

There are very similar studies for private schools, can't find this second

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