Hello,
Being from the West Coast- the prestige of the school isn't as important as it is in the east coast ( I have lived in both.) With that said, HGSE has many critical thinkers that are big players in educational academia. In California, UCLA is the majority of leading scholars that higher education schools use, especially ones that incorporate Critical Theories. Is the HGSE has "hard" to get into than say Harvard Law, kennedy, or HC- not at all. But for a lot of people, that isn't really a big deal.