<p>There is a huge difference between saying “I will pay for our perfectly fine state school, but nothing above”, and “I will only pay for a top 20 school, and if you don’t get into one of those, you’re a failure.”</p>
<p>Quantmech’s post# 65 and PG’s post #81 are spot on.</p>
<p>"“I will only pay for a top 20 school, and if you don’t get into one of those, you’re a failure.” </p>
<p>-this one is easy. for Ivy caliber kids, many state schools are free. So, here you go, no support is needed, go for free as my D. did. Of course, she did not care to apply to top schools at all, so it was no discussion. She applied only to schools that she knew would give her incrdible Merit packages, including one very expensibve private. It has happened as planed.
So, as I have mentioned before, OP should ignore what his parents are saying and apply widely. After he will not get into top schools as he indicated because of low GPA, he will get accepted to others. So, what parents will do? He has listen, he has applied, he did not get accepted. So, can choose to pay or not for another UG. If not, then OP will have to choose the cheapest one or free one. It will have absolutely no effect on his future. If he works hard in UG, he will be successful after graduation no matter what he want to do, go to Med. School, Law School, Grad. School, work…everybody are looking for top kids, UG school name is either secondary consideration or no consideration at all (in most fields). This is one option. We should start listing options for OP, I am not sure OP is very interested in out discussion expecialy about immigrants as most of us have no clue and more so people who point out that they do.</p>
<p>JYM - As an Asian parent, I would do exactly what you say should not be done - “I will pay for x top 20 school buy not Y top 50 or LAC.” </p>
<p>As far as I am concerned, I am looking for most bang for my buck. If the kid gets some level of scholarship at an LAC and wants to go there, I would probably be fine but won’t care to do a full pay unless the school is considered a top notch stepping stone to a professional school for business/law/medical school or have a history of graduating seniors getting jobs that pay at least the annual tab for that school. </p>
<p>As I mentioned in an earlier post, my kid does a reverse threat about taking full merit scholarship based on national merit so there are no restrictions at all. So it is all part of negotiating and setting expectations. </p>
<p>PG - (tongue firmly planted in cheek) I ain’t blaming the kid. As you know it is those racist schools not accepting my kid.</p>
<p>Well texaspg, just remember that the message you give your kid will stay with them, and when they graduate they will choose what kind of relationship they will want to continue to have with you.</p>
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<p>What if your kid gets shut out of all of the schools in question? Would your kid be a failure or disgrace if s/he had to attend a state university or other school that is less selective than a “reach for everyone” school?</p>
<p>Medical and law schools are generally thought to care little or none about four year undergraduate school prestige, in comparison to GPA and test (MCAT or LSAT) scores.</p>
<p>JYM - fortunately, there has been no love whatsoever for LACs and that is not something I had a role in. I suspect it came out that way because of where the peers in the school is applying? Somehow I get the feeling that Texas public school kids are not into LACs.</p>
<p>UCB - no worries. UT engineering is great and it is a done deal. Saves a lot of money for graduate studies. As I mentioned in the same post, not getting into top 20 will be considered the school’s fault!</p>
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<p>'Tis true.</p>
<p>Also has to do w/ the education level and family wealth (if the family is pretty wealthy and live in an affluent (generally white suburb), there isn’t the economic driver for getting into a top school, but that is often replaced by the general competition by the student body in such affluent suburb.</p>
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<p>Depends - the majority of Asian-Am students attend community college, and there are plenty of Asian parents generally from SE Asia who either don’t think college is a realistic option or that any higher education is a blessing.</p>
<p>The same can be said for Jews and later immigrants from Eastern Europe; heck, Nigerian parents are known to be tough on their kids and if they think their kid is “slacking off” due to “lazy American” influences, they’ll ship 'em off to a year of school back in Nigeria where the competition is fierce.</p>
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<p>Some of the areas where the “push” is greatest seem to be wealthy predominantly *Asian<a href=“not%20white”>/i</a> areas. A Wall Street Journal article a few years back suggested that an atmosphere of hypercompetitiveness (“tiger parenting”?) was causing “white flight” from at least one such area.
[The</a> Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition](<a href=“http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/teen/teencenter/05nov_whiteflight.htm]The”>http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/teen/teencenter/05nov_whiteflight.htm)</p>
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<p>Or they realize that the community college and transfer route is a viable option to keep costs down, or give recent immigrant students more time to improve their English skills that were not up to par as high school juniors and seniors (when their English grades and test scores knocked them out of the running for freshman admission to four year schools).</p>
<p>There is a large group of Ukranian immigrants in my area. Wonderful people, but based on behavior, alone, they seem to do the same things and have the same priorities as the stereotypical Asian parents. No insight there, just a personal observation.</p>
<p>I live in a Jewish/Italian small town suburb. My friends who have “tiger-ish” parents are:</p>
<p>Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Indian, and Japanese. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t underestimate the Jewish tiger-mom either.</p>
<p>Turbo…I really liked post #22.</p>
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<p>Those areas became “wealthy” by virtue of the influx of Asians (usually one particular ethnicity - such as Chinese-dominated towns in and around LA).</p>
<p>There have been plenty of articles about the academic competition at schools like New Trier (Northshore, Chicago) or in Westchester, NY or Long Island (where the recent test cheating scandal occurred) where the pop. is predominantly white and affluent.</p>
<p>Also, who do you think are the ones fighting tooth and nail to get their kids into the elite private schools in Manhattan, including pre-K?</p>
<p>Along those same lines, who do you think are the ones (mostly) who send their kids to elite prep schools elsewhere like Phillips Exeter, Roxbury Latin, St. Paul’s, Phillips Academy, Choate, etc.?</p>
<p>The above post could explain not only ‘white flight’ but school picking in general. I live in an area where we have urban, rich suburban, moderate suburban, rural, and small town school systems within an hours drive. Plus privates from parochial to prep and everything in between. The school system my kids attend(ed) has a ton of Tiger cubs (Asians alone are a pretty healthy percentage) and is very competitive, ranking top 1-3 in the state for ever. Drive north of XYZ Street and you find MUCH easier school systems where everyone is ‘Honors’, ‘Gifted’, and the like. Drive some more and you are in rural land, where a 4.0 is as easy as showing up. All parts of the same state, and having to follow (in theory) the same curriculum. It’s just easier in some places. </p>
<p>The privates are not any better, some of the popular parochials are academic disasters, with great GPA potential but nowhere as competitive or comprehensive.</p>
<p>To AlexChen & the original writer,</p>
<p>To AlexChen: Your 2 cents is wonderful. In fact, if you put this in your essay, you will be viewed v highly by v good schools (i don’t know your scores). But you will make it & will be v successful in your life. </p>
<p>To Both: The ‘over-bearing’ Asian (indudes Indian & etc) too is a side effect of their cultural upbringing and immigration economics. There are a significant amount of data out their to suggest “immigrants need to go some extra miles in order for the same or similar outcome”. Being through this, the parents automatically assume that so early their kids can ride on a “BRAND”, so less challenging it will be in the future for their kids.
Is their a logic for these thoughts? Of course YES. Can you pin-point it? Of course NOT. That’s the conflict which the parents can not resolve. So theirs kids become the victim. The parents think: their kids are smarter, way smarter… Is their enough data to support that? Answer is of course YES. That makes these kids life more complicated because their parents have the data from the same ethnic origin.</p>
<p>the ‘missing’ element of all these behavior is: The parents forget that their kids will NOT be in the same boat like themselves. Their kids are NOT immigrant like they were. their kids thinks and speak similar & same. Their food habit & habit in general are the same. So even if they don’t get into the top- 12 colleges in the country as in Undergrad, they will go there in Grad School or MBAs. Even if they don’t get there, they will be to get a decent connection to land a good job.</p>
<p>Now, as an immigrant, the battle would be at least 2 times harder. The parents are thinking still in that way.</p>
<p>I agree with bashishg3 comments.</p>
<p>As an immigrant parent myself, who is not Asian, I know I behave like a stereotypical Asian parent. </p>
<p>Last summer my son participated in Math “camp”, which was offered to students of very selective math program at our state flagship. He came home and commented that he was the only white boy there, everyone else was Asian. </p>
<p>The fact of the matter was, the students were given camp handout to bring home and it was discovered that none of the students showed the hand out to their parents. Nobody wanted to do math during summer. Upon this discovery, the administration made sure that parents were aware of the opportunity. </p>
<p>The end result was that every kid in that camp was a child of first generation immigrant, my son just happened to be a child of European immigrants. Non-immigrant parents did not send their kids to the math camp. </p>
<p>My son has many friends who are Asians and he overhead a conversation between his friend and his mom, which went something like that:</p>
<p>-- Look at this nice (asian) boy. He gets all As.
– But mom, I get all As too.
– But he gets BETTER As.</p>
<p>My son told me that he could totally see me having this conversation with him (if he got all As :)).</p>
<p>@bashishg3, thanks very much for your kind words. I was very lucky to receive a full-ride scholarship from a school where my major consistently ranks among the top 5 (both grad and undergrad) in all the rankings I can find. It’s a huge state school but the nice honors college can help it feel small. I think my parents still secretly wish I would go to an Ivy, not for their vanity but for me to have an “easier life”. They can afford the full pay, but just barely. That’s why I didn’t apply to any school which does not offer significant merit scholarships. I just didn’t want to have to make that decision.</p>