Advice on dealing with parent's aspirations that differ from your own?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hi everyone,

So before I attempt to explain this mess, let me give you some context so that the story makes sense. I am half Ethiopian and my biological father’s heritage is unknown since he left the family several months after I was born. So I’ve been raised by my immigrant Ethiopian mom and her community for the entirety of my life. Because of this, my mom does not have familiarity with colleges to the extent that that a kid’s affluent family might. Of course she’s aware of the local universities in Minnesota and the big names (IVs, Stanford, MIT, ETC.)

Moving on.

I’m currently a senior in high school. Back in December I had submitted all of my college applications and necessary financial aid forms. Now, the schools I care about the most are liberal arts colleges (Bowdoin, F&M, Holy Cross and Union.) Prior to the submission of my applications, I had discussed my list multiple times with my mom. However, I had been referring to them as their nicknames, rather than the official names, so she did not know that Union was Union College or that Bowdoin was Bowdoin College. Fast forward to the week before Christmas break. I have my Bowdoin interview coming up and it is the Friday before I meet the alum that will be interviewing me. My mom and I are talking about it, and then out of no where she asks “is Bowdoin a college or university?” I respond with “it’s a liberal arts college.” Instantly she expressed her hatred for the school and all liberal arts colleges, saying that “stupid people go there” and that they are “lower class.” This took me a back, as I never knew that she had such a negative impression of LACs. I then attempt to understand her reasoning behind her hatred for liberal arts institutions. Her reasoning didn’t make any sense to me, it seemed to be completely materialized out of no where. She said “I just don’t like them, it’s lower class, stupid people go there, do not go there, I hate those schools,” ETC. She then proceeded to tell me about a girl in the Ethiopian community that graduated 2 years ago, and she decided to go to a LAC. Her family and the entire Ethiopian community stopped talking to her, her parents withdrew all support they had been giving her, including financial support and basically she was disowned and shuned. She then threatened to do the same to me if I were to do the same thing that the other girl did.

This terrified me. I had no idea that my mom was willing to withdraw all support and discontinue contact with me if I were to go against her wishes. Again, her wishes make no sense. I’ve tried to revisit the conversation and change her mind. I showed her data on the schools that I was interested in, I tried clearing up any misconceptions and I also told her about how Obama went to an LAC for 2 years. Her response? “I don’t care. You want to go to a college, go ahead. Go ahead and make me unhappy. Make me miserable with my life.” I’m sorry if I sound like a brat but this just seems unfair to me. She’s making it all about her and leveraging the emotional pull she knows she has. Even if I don’t get into my top LACs I still want to go to another LAC on my list because after doing months of research I decided that they are the best choice for me.

Look, I’m not going to get into too much detail about this next part but I’ve lived an extremely restricted life. College is suppose to be the time I venture out outside my mom’s control bubble and make decisions based on what I think is best for me, not what makes my mom happy. So much of what I’ve done is simply to make my mom happy and this is going to sound dramatic, but I’m tired of shoving aside my feelings for the sake of family pride and my mom’s ego.

I really do want to go to college, and up to this point it was the one thing my mom and I could agree on. But with this LAC stuff we are at disagreement and it’s making things difficult. What do I do? Can I convince her? What can I do to convince her? If all fails do I take a risk and commit to an LAC anyway? Please somebody help.

2

Unfortunately, your mother has all of the power in terms of college money and financial aid form cooperation, so she has absolute veto power over your college choices (unless you earn a full ride merit scholarship), even if it is for irrational reasons.

Do you know if others in your ethnic community also have a strong dislike of LACs, or if your mother is making that up?

What does she think of University of Minnesota - Morris?

3

Can anyone else talk to her? Your GC or someone she respects in the community who understands this better?

Hopefully you can sort it, but it may not work out. I know a MN kid with immigrant parents who got into Stanford with full need met, and her parents made her go to Hamline because it was close to home and they couldn’t be made to understand what an opportunity it was for her.

4

@ucbalumnus

Ok, I am going to try my best to explain this. Please keep in mind my mom isn’t from the US so her conceptualization of college is very… different.

She wouldn’t have an issue with UM Morris because it has the word university in the name. Yes I know, completely illogical. The name equates to what the school is and how good it is in her mind. So if you were to present her with 2 colleges, like Denison University and Bowdoin College, which are both LACs, she would say that Denison University is better.

I suppose I could apply to UM Morris since the deadline isn’t until March 15th. I would prefer to get out of Minnesota since so many of my peers matriculate to Minnesota schools and I’d like to leave the Minnesota bubble I’ve been in my entire life. Also I spent a tremendous amount of time researching colleges and determining which schools met my needs the best… But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

As for the community point of view, yes the rest of my ethnic community is in agreement with my mom. My stepdad is also Ethiopian and he agrees with her and I’ve asked multiple others on their opinion. Also I don’t doubt her ability to erase me from my life because she has done it with family members she has had conflicts with, such as her brother. They have not spoken in years.

It’s unlikely I’ll get a full merit scholarship. I mean, I’m a decent student, I have a 3.82 GPA, but that’s not particularly amazing.

5

How about Lawrence? It is a solid LAC with “University” in the name. Apps for RD due by Feb. 15.

Take this issue to your guidance counselor at school and ask for help. Maybe they can get involved, or even ask an assistant principal or someone with a title she might respect to talk with her.

You could try to show her the SAT score ranges for U-MN vs the schools you are interested in to show her that higher scoring students are going to places like Bowdoin. But maybe wait until you have actual admissions to do it.

6

Hi @intparent,

I don’t think my GC would be a good idea since that’s not exactly someone my mom respects.

Someone else in the community, yes I agree that’s a great idea, it’s a matter of finding someone. I have an aunt that was educated in the west for the majority of her life (Greece and England) and she might be a good person to talk to. My concerns with her though are the following:

  1. She's actually really close to my mom and this might cause a rift.
  2. I've gone to her with other issues such as situations regarding my mental health and her response has been "don't stress your mom out, hang in there, don't talk to your mom about these things, she's done so much for you just go along with what she wants," ETC. Please don't interpret this as me being ungrateful. I'm extremely grateful for the sacrifices my mom has made for me and more often than not I feel guilty, but I'm trying to strike a balance, you know? Ultimately it's my future.
  3. Another concern is she agrees with my mother.

In regards to the student you know who had to go to Hamline despite their acceptance to Stanford, that’s actually pretty common in the immigrant community, particularly East Africans, at least here in Minnesota. My mom is fine with me going out of state, I’m pretty lucky in that respect. It’s just this whole thing on LACs that’s she’s very adamant about.

7

@intparent,

***Correction: She might agree with her

8

Hi @intp,

Sorry for the messy responses, I have a hard time tracking when new posts pop up do to my visual impairment.

Thank you, I actually never thought about the test scores idea. Up to this point I was showing her data on median income, employment/grad school statistics and I tried using the USNWR fallacy against her.

9

So here is another thing. You could get better aid from colleges. “Universities” are often (not all) public institutions. They are funded by states. They rarely give good FA to students from out of state.

Also, many states (including MN) have drastically cut their funding to their state universities in recent years. Tight state budgets because of decreased revenues from the recession starting in 2008 were one major factor. The funding never bounced back in many states. State legislatures controlled by Republicans often have cut spending for universities as well. The quality of a public university education isn’t what it used to be.

Also, universities mostly have larger class sizes, and many sections are taught by TAs, not professors. Also, if you are interested in researching, a LAC may have more opportunities because there are no graduate students – professors use undergrads in their labs and to help with research overall because that who is at their college.

10

Wild. Is she confusing LACs with Community Colleges (not that I have that opinion of CCs)? What a weird thing to think about such prestigious schools. So she’d rather you go to your state public university than, say, Williams?

Maybe go on LinkedIn and search for graduates of XX LAC in the major you are considering, so she can see where those grads go on to work.

11

Find out what “College” means in Ethiopia.

In a global context, the words “college” and “university” can inspire confusion. Different countries use the same words to name different things. What is usually called a “college” in Europe is really more like the two-year institution called a “community college” in the United States.

In the US, “college” means it only has undergraduate degrees (or limited Masters) and Universities means it has graduate degrees.

So have her talk to your GC about what college means in the USA.

12

Has she heard of the Ivy League? Would it help if she knew Dartmouth is a “college” and not a “university” as a way to understand that prestige/quality isn’t restricted to universities?

13

Do you have any interest in graduate school, especially a PhD? This might be helpful:

http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/

LACs are very well represented.

14

Another lower-list-price LAC with “University” in its name is Truman State University in Missouri, although it is relatively large for a LAC. It has some automatic-for-stats merit scholarships and some competitive merit scholarships as well.

Among private LACs, there are “Universities” like Colgate University and University of Richmond, but their application deadlines have already passed.

15

If you want to avoid a gap year then you’d better accept the possibility that this is not going to get explained sufficiently by spring and come up with some viable options your mother will accept. It’s late, so get cracking on digging up some LAC-like schools with university in the name and start applying. Lawrence was suggested above, and it’s exactly the sort of school to start reaching out to. Just go grab some college lists and start flipping through them. Bucknell, Denison, Colgate, Wesleyan, Washington&Lee and others are all Universities on the National LAC list from USNWR, for example. And be sure to look at some of the regional lists to find more (eg Creighton, Butler, and Drake are all nice places in the Midwest with fewer than 5000 students.)

If your mother isn’t going to learn any more about how this works then just smile quietly and step around her by picking a school you like with a name that’ll pass muster. You can get most of what you want, go explore college like you want to, and she’ll be none the wiser. It’s too bad this complication didn’t arise until now, and honestly it’s getting late to get into the very top schools, but there’s still time to find a terrific place where you’ll be happy.

16

I was thinking the same thing. So here’s a list of potential strategies:

  1. Show her on LinkedIn the success of people who have gone to LACs.
  2. Explain to her that the U.S. is different from Ethiopia in that way. The two countries are so different in many ways, and this is another example.
  3. Remind her that she came here to give you the American way of life, and this is an example of something that is part of the American way of life.
  4. Show her a list of best colleges and universities (a mixed list) so she can see the ranking of colleges.
  5. Show her that Dartmouth – an Ivy League school – is called Dartmouth College.
17

Get the brochures and catalogs from the schools. Show your mother all the courses they offer (engineering at Union), the famous people who did go to those schools, anything you can find on rankings. Then show her how they compare to some of the schools she knows from Minnesota like St. Thomas, St. Catherine’s, Gustavus.

18

St Thomas, St Catherine’s, Augsburg, etc are all universities, if it comes to that.

19

University of the South (Sewanee) deadline is in two days:
http://admission.sewanee.edu/apply/application-options–deadlines/

20

Also, American undergraduates attend Harvard College. The College at Penn.
In Ethiopia, it means ‘smaller place for students who couldn’t get into a university’.
In the us, it meant ‘elite universities for prep school/boarding school students’. (They’ve diversified but basically that’s why you have the seven sisters and little ivies.) Show her Dead Poet Society. These kids are going to colleges, ie, elite schools to prepare for elite MBA, med school, PhD, law school.

But yes your best bet is to apply to LACs that have university in the name.
Lawrence. Truman State and UMN-MORRIS.
I was thinking of Wesleyan and URichmond but the deadlines have passed.