Irvine officials don’t keep tabs on the number of education-focused companies within their borders, according to city spokesman Craig Reem, but city publications tout “superior schools,” where high school graduation reached nearly 96% for the class of 2014, compared with 88.6% for Orange County and 80.8% statewide.Ībout 90% of Irvine’s high school graduates go on to college - a statistic published in Asian media catering to the city’s Asian population - nearly 40% of the city’s population of more than 236,000, according to the U.S. “We care that they understand the material - not just memorize it - and we work with children to learn real-life skills, useful stuff that they can depend on.” “I picked Irvine to make a difference as a teacher because of its culture of education,” said Lee, a graduate of the Wharton School, the prestigious business program at the University of Pennsylvania, and a test guru with perfect scores in the SAT and ACT as recently as 2013. Just last fall, one of his pupils, a high school freshman, became one of fewer than 600 students nationwide to get a perfect score of 2,400 on his SAT - from a pool of more than 1.6 million test-takers, College Board records show. One afternoon, inside a cubicle-filled room at ReadWrite, a pair of siblings simulated taking the SAT with Vice Principal Philip Lee. “We see kids who cram all year, but Irvine is special because it can draw global talent,” says Michael Kim, a member of the faculty at ReadWrite, a spinoff of South Korea’s academic powerhouse, Chungdahm, with a center just a few hundred yards from Ardent. The discipline and resources available here - they’re a magnet.”įor those not lucky enough to live locally, the option is to check in during vacations, or as Lee describes it, fly in to attend weekend chemistry tutorials, as one young scholar did, all the way from Princeton, N.J. “It’s a breeding ground for excellence, and you will hear people in Asia talk about how they plan to send their kids over. Irvine’s reputation spread because “when you have so many success stories, it’s easy to draw the top students, the top teachers,” said academic coach Sophia Chang, who screens Southern California applicants to Harvard, her alma mater. “I realized that for my children to be really good, I have to get them the best training that is possible.” “If you’re a B student in Irvine schools, you could be an A student elsewhere,” Chan said. This is the place to be,” she said, helping her access what she calls “No. Lisa Chan, who commutes from San Diego to Irvine during summers, would agree. “If you are committed to a chosen field, you find the best teachers for your children,” Lee said. Many roads lead to this suburban city, as folks gravitate to the Roosevelt Office Park, where more than 50% of businesses like Ardent dedicate themselves to all things collegiate, from counseling and robotics to navigating the financial aid puzzle.ĭay to day, scores of parents pull up in their SUVs, unloading youngsters carrying thick binders of homework.
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“They figure out how to get them to Irvine for school breaks or for summer training.” “They contact us from Asia, even from Europe - the distance is not a problem when they aim for their kids to be at the top,” she adds.
Math teacher Young Lee, who doubles as receptionist at Ardent Academy for Gifted Youth, routinely takes calls from families that are out of state, or out of the country, wanting to know about a Science Olympiad or area lodging. She needs to book an extended stay, after signing up her kids for honors biology and not wanting to shuttle daily from the San Gabriel Valley. In person, a mother from Arcadia runs into the spic-and-span tutoring center in Irvine, asking about local hotels.
Parents dial in from Texas, New York and Nevada.
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