I was talking to some of my friends today, who were white and our conversation drifted to the topic of how we got into college. Then they mentioned to me that their parents actually went on Collegeconfidential to search for college admission information and even buy them books to read on it. Since I’m an immigrant from Vietnam, my parents never did that, so I find it surprising. If you’re an Asian parent, did you/ do you spend a lot of time looking up college admission information for your children?
What is the educational attainment of their parents and your parents?
A lot on first kid - helped him to apply to about 12 schools. Not so much on other kids - just 1-2 schools, all local.
Not sure this only applies to Asian parents.
We are not Asian. We learned about the college DD attended from a poster on college confidential. We never heard of it prior. I got tons of excellent information from posters here for our DD who was looking at colleges completely out of our region. Folks were terrific providing information as well as places to get more information if we wanted it.
I’m white and my parents barely knew what colleges I was applying to let alone did any searching.
Theirs-- college graduates. Some have MBAs. Mine: High school
I’m more interested in Asian parents because I’m Asian haha. Thanks though!
May I ask whether you’re middle class and have a college degree?
We get plenty of Asian parents, and every other ethnic group researching out here. I am not sure what ethnicity has to do with the question. I think first gen college parents and low income parents are less likely to research for their kids.
^ Great points. I’m just curious to find out whether ethnicity plays a role since I major in Anthropology!
“May I ask whether you’re middle class and have a college degree?”
Yes middle class but sinking. Yes college degree
That is likely the stronger correlation (than race or ethnicity) to how much attention parents pay to college for their kids.
My hubby and I are immigrants, too, from Southeast Asia, high income, postgraduate degrees, and college search has been in our family discussions for as long as the kids can remember. . Not necessarily the same for our extended family,where all of mine and my hubby’s siblings have at least gotten a college degree. At least for my extended family circle, it seems to correlate more with income ( with the higher income more involved in college search, etc) .
Background: both parents: Asian immigrates, US college education; child born in the US.
To us, college application (and later, grad school application) was a family project. The application wrote the essays and filled out the applications, but everyone chipped in to help: searching for information, proofreading essays/applications, …
There were a lot of discussions, heated at times. But it was the applicant who made the ultimate decisions.
I have read many posts from Asian parents on CC. I have seen many posts by Asian kids too. But, not everyone who posts on CC announces their ethnicity or race. FWIW, I would say in general, on the parents forum I get the impression many parents posting are college educated, and Asian or white, but that is certainly not conclusive. Many of those parents are clearly trying to help their kids get into selective colleges. Not really surprising, IMO.
I can say that I personally know two Asian families who did not use CC, though perhaps their kids did. One of the families, I am very friendly with, and I felt compelled to give them a wake up call. They assumed, like many people do, that their exceptionally high stats daughter would just get into any Ivy she applied to. They didn’t know how holistic admissions work. They actually thanked me with a bottle of wine later for enlightening them, and in fact their D was denied from every Ivy she applied to, as well as Tufts. But she is going to Amherst, so there is no sadness from their D.
On the admissions and chances forums, it seems that the students posting are from every SES and race/ethnicity. The more aware students will often state their race up front, because they know it can be a factor.
I know many Asian parents who don’t read CC. For the few that do they cannot get full benefits out of it. The simple reason is their lack of a US pre-college and college education. Without one they cannot fully comprehend the info presented. Their advanced degrees won’t help much.