<p>The big question is, does the less competitive high school prepare the students well for college work? If top 7-10% students from that high school struggle in college due to inadequate preparation, then attending such a high school is not a good idea.</p>
<p>A major Texas school district puts out reports on AP courses and tests like this: <a href=“http://www.houstonisd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=73138&dataid=92561&FileName=2013%20AP_final.pdf”>http://www.houstonisd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=73138&dataid=92561&FileName=2013%20AP_final.pdf</a> . Note figure 5b on page 14, where the modal score for A students in AP courses is 1 overall, and 1 for the subareas of English and science (and 1 scores are worrisomely common for A students in math/CS AP courses). Such results are not good.</p>