I agree (and I have to say I always find your posts well balanced and informative). But my point is, in similar situations “chasing prestige” or “why all the Ivies?” is often raised by posters. So that’s what stood out to me. And it wasn’t specifically your post.
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Victim of what?
Not all high achieving kids apply to elite schools. The applications to top schools disproportionately come from areas with high concentrations of high achieving students who are also seeking admission at the same schools.
These areas tend to have higher Asian populations, but as you note, the desire of families in these areas to send their kids to top schools “does not apply only to Asians.” There may be some cultural tendencies regarding what actually constitutes top school, but that these are fuzzy too.
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I think it will be interesting to see if there are trends in the chance me threads, as @DadOfJerseyGirl suspects may be happening. It’s something I will try to pay closer attention to. I have not viewed the T20 finance thread yet, but I wonder whether the posts that bring up prestige (or don’t) have certain commonalities. My hypothesis is that:
- Students or parents who indicate they can afford the sticker price without loans are questioned less, if at all
- If a student, and not a parent, is posting then some posters will want to know if the parent realizes that a student could go to a state flagship for $20k vs $80k or to a less prestigious private school for $40k vs $80k and whether or not the parents are okay with that differential.
- If a student indicates that paying for grad school is likely, then people will ask/suggest whether savings from college can be applied to grad school, or whether the family can pay for all the schooling without loans.
- If a student indicates that s/he want to go into investment banking, and the family can afford it, there are probably few posters urging a different path
- If a student wants to go into CS, they are likely to be told that they can go to a significantly less expensive school, often getting a better CS education, and that it will not make one whit of difference to their job prospects (or it might even improve them)
I am not entirely sure that people take much issue with prestige chasing in the chance me threads. I think they take a bigger issue about budget. If a family from a low-income family with a superlative profile has the most prestigious schools on the list, people are fine with it assuming the EFC is pretty much $0 and the student has safeties. If a kid has a choice between Harvard for $0 and Alabama for $0, I doubt there would be many people promoting Alabama (unless the kid wanted to play in the NFL). I think the issue arises more when it’s Top X college at $80k vs respected private at $40-50k or a state flagship at $25-40k.
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OMG, you name it. It is like playing whack-a-mole. Everything goes into the mixing bowl: his parents for the life of deprivation and frugality they imposed on him as a child; the preppy white kids he had to compete with by taking up a sport that would disable him for the rest of his life; the fancy HYPMS university that admitted him then failed to advise him against majoring in social science (!!!) instead of business (where his true vocation really was.) Yet, when asked whether he would raise his kids any differently, he gives me a look that seems to say, “Are you kidding? Of course not.”
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Also, I think we really ought to leave “genetics” out of this conversation.
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Can we please move off the “victim” conversation. Can we further avoid starting posts with “Do you really believe…” or similar phrasing.
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In 2022, the Ivy league schools, Stanford and MIT received about 400k total applications. This doesnt even include Northwestern, Duke, Johns Hopkins, CalTech, etc.
There are 1.1 million Asian kids currently enrolled (undergraduate) in ALL colleges in the US.
It’s literally impossible for Asian Americans to represent anywhere close to a majority of these applications to top schools.
Who are these other kids chasing prestige and should their parents be advised that a SUNY education may be better?
I think discussing budget is absolutely valid and should be part of the conversation unless OP has clearly indicated it’s not an issue.
But I’m not referring to that. If you see other posts where an OP has said they are applying to all 8 Ivies, you can bet you’ll see someone say “why all Ivies? They’re so different”. And you’ll see this regardless of budget considerations.
I’m not drawing conclusions from 2 recent threads. I’m just asking for some introspection from all of us who reply to chance me threads to make sure we’re being even handed.
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A quick search revealed an older thread. Indian-American asking his chances at the Ivies. See the immediate responses - they are not about budget but about chasing prestige
(To be clear: I’m not picking on these particular posters. I’m just trying to illustrate a point)
I’m not sure I follow. I’m certainly not suggesting (nor do I believe) that “Asian Americans to represent anywhere close to a majority of these applications to top schools.” Perhaps you misunderstood my post? Or were you responding to someone else?
I don’t think there is a single category of such kids, but the tendency is for such applicants to disproportionally come from places with high concentrations of high achieving kids. (I’m in such a place.) Parents are generally (but not always) wealthier and more educated.
While there are higher concentrations of Asian students in these areas than in most of the country, not all Asian families in these areas are primarily concerned with prestige (as @ucbalumnus has pointed out with regard to SJSU) and there are plenty of Non Asian families in these areas who are very concerned with prestige. I think we are in agreement on this last point, are we not?
Can’t speak to high schools near SUNY, but at some schools in such areas in California, from about 7th grade and ramping up thereafter, there is a concerted effort on the part of the schools to try to convince families that the SHYMP-or-bust mentality is potentially counterproductive to their children’s education and well being. When college counseling formally starts a few years later, these schools actively try to convince students to focus on fit rather than prestige, and try to get families to consider options outside of the SHYMP+ schools.
As @BKSquared noted regarding his lecture to parents, this oftentimes falls on deaf ears. Families (IMO Asian and non-Asian) nod politely then continue to try to do everything they can to get their kids into SHYMP schools.
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If you substitute (in-state flagship X) for SUNY, it actually happens quite a lot. @Bill_Marsh was among the first to devote an entire thread to the subject (whether it was correct or incorrect to give such advice):
Importance of Undergraduate College to Med School Admission - Pre-Med & Medical School / Pre-Med Topics - College Confidential Forums
And here’s a smattering of threads that are pretty typical of the answers given. None that I’ve been able to spot involve Asian OPs:
Colleges to AVOID for Premed - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums
On-the-fence-Premed School - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums
You’ve got several examples that aren’t even really relevant. A few are Chance me Top 10 colleges but most are just random threads about the best chances to get into Med school.
One of them asks about going to Arizona, another one is about Tulane/Baylor. A third is choosing between Berkelely or Rice (both of which they were already accepted so there’s no point even mentioning other schools or chasing prestige). In one example, the OP specifically mentions being an immigrant and talks about Asian expectations so not sure how that OP is not Asian.
At this point, Im just going to assume we will never agree on any of this and Im perfectly fine not engaging you further and Im sure you feel the same.
You’re only half right. 
I know kids that apply to every Ivy or most every school that meets need. These kids have a zero EFC and they can’t consider fit when applying, they are just trying to get into one school that will cover all their expenses. If they don’t get in, they will most likely end up living at home and commuting to CC and these are top students.
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One of those posts was mine, and I will stand by it. Certainly, students should apply wherever they want and can afford. For top students, that may mean including a number of top schools in their list. As we all know, however, being a top student (of any gender, race or ethnicity) does not assure admission to a top school. The posts that stand out in my mind are those from Asian students who tell us that their parents refuse to let them apply to anything other than a top school or will not pay for anything other than a top school. As I suggested, this may reflect these parents’ experience with systems like those in Japan and an number of other “Asian” countries where where you go to college can be determinative of your career outcome. In the U.S., a student can have a great outcome graduating from an Ivy, but that depends on what they do there, and, if they end up at a school lower down in the rankings, they can still have a great outcome - that’s what I would like parents to understand. What prompted me to jump into this thread is the sadness I always feel when I see posts from kids who feel they will have failed if they don’t get into an “elite” college. It’s not correct and it sets them off on a wrong path at a time when they should be feeling full of promise. This is true with respect to all kids, not just Asian kids, but I live in “Asia” and probably feel it more strongly with respect to Asian kids.
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You are 100% correct that in many Asian countries, your fate has a strong positive outcome if you attend an elite university (ie Seoul National University) and this may explain why some Asian parents press their kids to attend HYPSM. And there may also be white/Latino/Black parents who also push their kids as well. My daughter told me there was a Jewish kid in her class whose parents forced him to read the names of every kid who made highest honors because he “only” made high honors.
For many Asian parents, they ask about attending a HYPSM because their kids are top students and that’s a natural extension of their class rank. At our HS, almost every Valedictorian, regardless of ethnicity, has attended a T10 school. Last year, an African American student was accepted into Stanford. The difference between non-Asians is that nobody questions non-Asians when they want to attend an elite HYPSM.
Asian parents “forcing” their kids to go to elite universities represent a very small percentage of the kids who apply to elite universities. If HYPSM and the rest of the Ivies received 500,000 applications, the majority of those applications are from non Asians and even the ones who are Asians, how many kids actually wanted to attend HYPSM because that IS their fit (to be surrounded by like minded kids who are academic) and not because their parents “pushed” them into it.
Many people just want to assume that the kids who are applying were either forced into it because of parental pressure or they are just chasing prestige - not because they just want to and are like any other really smart kids who are part of the hundreds of thousands regardless of race/gender/etc.
These are stereotypes and double standards to the point there’s actually this thread with many respondents identifying how to “educate” Asian parents and kids". Are their threads that discuss whether we should educate White parents, Latino parents, Black parents of not chasing prestige or “pushing” their kids to attend elite schools? No. And there probably wont be.
if I started a thread: Educating White Parents about forcing their kids into elite universities, the response would be, ■■■ are you talking about.
In this thread, apparently it’s a legitimate and accepted conversation.
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In my time on CC, I’ve seen many posters try to “educate” many other posters about focusing too much on prestige. I haven’t seen a pointed effort to limit those lectures to Asian posters. I’m pretty confident those who tend to offer that perspective are equal opportunity educators. I just don’t see that as an Asian thing, any more than I see veracity in the view that colleges as a general matter dislike Asians on the basis of a cultural stereotype rather than simply wanting a diverse campus and not wanting an oversupply of really any cohort. Again, when elite law school deans told me that Cuban American applicants enjoyed a good enough representation (essentially what they were saying), I didn’t take it personally as a Cuban or as an assault on my ethnicity. The issue of whether their attempts at social engineering is or is not ok is another topic altogether, which we can’t debate here.
I, myself, agree with those who say it’s not really our place to tell people what to want. People want things for good and bad reasons, and this is no different. Sure, it can be off-putting when that % of the ‘prestige or bust’ cohort cant make their point without resorting to bashing other schools, particularly when they don’t know what they’re talking about (e.g., “LACs tend to draw from the middle of the class,” or “School X just isn’t School Y,” etc.) But bad behavior and ignorance doesn’t make it wrong to want what one wants. Let 'em all chase what they want I say.
That’s just abnormal and abhorrent behavior. Poor kid. He’ll have issues in adulthood. I’d lay a bet on it.
And I’d agree with them, and if I saw someone starting a thread worded that way towards Asians, I’d stand behind you in calling it out. The right thread title there is “Educating parents about forcing their kids, …”
One thing this calls into question, though, which I brought up in the Try Harder thread, is whether it’s ever wise to use ethnic or racial stereotypes to make a point. In that and in this thread, posters (including posters who identify as Asian American) have drawn on positive and negative stereotypes to make their point. I think everybody is better off if we don’t do it at all. So, maybe we should stop talking about the Asian American community as a monolithic culture of work-to-the-bone overachievers born of pressure cooker parents and remember that Asian Americans come in all varieties like other cohorts.
My friend the investment banker has a tendency to overlook the fact that he got his job because he went to a third-tier business school not because he attended HYPMS for undergrad.
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I agree it’s terrible. Apparently both his parents are doctors and expect him to be an A+ student because they both attended elite schools.
This stuff happens all the time, especially when parents themselves (regardless of ethnicity) attended elite schools.
I think he got a B in AP World history and our “Honor Roll” is based on unweighted GPA and not weighted GPA. And his parents weren’t happy about that either because there were kids who were in “Highest honors” who didnt “deserve” it because they took “easier classes”.
My daughter felt so bad for him, she gave him a bag of pretzels.
This mentality is not just Asian parents but there some pretty hardcore parents of all ethnicities.
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