You are a sterling exception and no doubt your kid will do well wherever he is.
Today, there really is no such thing as a good/bad school. Anyone who has his mind on excelling will excel no matter what he is. But you put a great kid in a room full of other kids who are more keen on playing, truancy, and cajoling to do dumb stuff, and you'll see where that great kid ends up.
IMHO, it's not how well you do in the exams, but who you grow up with that counts. In our time, good/bad schools were differentiated by academic results. Today, there is a huge social divide in terms of attitudes.
My younger cousins and their friends that end up in bad schools take a longer route to academic normalcy and end up 50:50 in the working world. More than 3/4 of my friends from the 'better' schools are leaders of their field. Me and my peers at times even base our hiring decisions on which family of schools applicants come from. Why? They have completely different attitude to work and are self-driven.
It is untrue that better schools inculcate a stifling atmosphere of 'study like mad or die' (that's more like the girls schools
). Many good schools are well balanced, and offer things that the lower-tier govt schools do not.
While i'll never force my kid to overdo tuition and supplemental classes etc, i believe in giving the best social infrastructure that will act as a boost for the future, and not a detriment.
It is who you grow up with that defines a good part of how you will grow up - not just exam results