<p>After receiving a positive early evaluation and the following flow of information/letters, Wellesley has become one of the top contenders (if not the top one) in the course of narrowing down my possible choices.</p>
<p>But I feel like I'm talking to myself when trying to discuss the possibility with my family, in particular my Chinese parents:</p>
<p>-Because I want to major in economics/int.relations (basically something that's not engineering) my parents are convinced that I will end up living in a box. Needless to say, they're dubious of any college that I decided to apply to not in the Ivy League.
-I'm having a hard time explaining what a Liberal Arts college is to them. Again, any non-Ivy or school outside of California leaves them scratching their heads and dialing their entire network of friends and relatives trying to figure out if anyone's heard of Wellesley.
-While my mother has asked me everyday if I've heard back from UC schools (I wrote APRIL 1ST on a piece of paper and now just point to it instead of trying to remind her all the time), she has yet to say anything to me about Wellesley except "Where?" or "Are you sure it's a university?"
-In the course of explaining where and what Wellesley is, the usual questions about "What rank is the school?" (They're convinced it won't be good if they don't know the school), "Will you be able to find a job afterwards?" (See above for box theory), and "Can you get into graduate school?"</p>
<p>I consider my parents to be kind of anomaly, considering that most people know at least where I'm talking about, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had trouble getting people to wrap their minds around applying/going to Wellesley.</p>
<p>Ultimately it's my choice, but it's a bit frustrating. I explain the appeal of the community and the idea of a connected student body of driven and intelligent people and even my friends don't quite get it. Major fail in communication skills.</p>
<p>Long story short (too late) how do you justify your interest in Wellesley to people who are statistics obsessed and used to the traditional college?</p>
<p>The problem is with them, not you. If you know what you're doing, you don't have to justify it anyone.</p>
<p>Now, if you re-frame your question to "How to I make my parents understand?", I don't know.</p>
<p>However, I think you should be able to pull up some very impressive statistics about Wellesley and graduate/professional school. And notable alumnae, starting with Hillary Clinton, if your parents have heard of her. (Who went to Yale Law. And then did or is doing a few other things.)</p>
<p>Maybe justify wasn't the right word, but yes, more or less "How do I bedazzle them with statistics and all that factual stuff when I applied for and looked more into other aspects of the school?" If it comes down to it, I will make a decision regardless, but I think it would be so much nicer to be able to convey that the prospect of even going is kind of exciting...and that I'm not throwing my life away to an obscure no name school (which really, couldn't be further). I don't mean to speak of them negatively, they're just old school like that.</p>
<p>I did try the alumnae approach. Hillary Clinton, Madeliene Albright, Madame Jiang Jishi. I'm trying to make them visit the school with me, maybe that'll make it more tangible.</p>
<p>Sock 'em with average SAT scores (higher than all if not most UC schools) and the Wall Street Journal article on elite grad school placement which places Wellesley 15th, ahead of UPenn and Cornell.</p>
<p>Don't know if I'd espouse Hillary as a reason for Wellesley (sorry, couldn't resist.......actually, George Bush can't even get in there). But I digress. D is a rising 4th year. Her very close friend at W is Chinese, wound up at W because she was rejected at her #1 choice. Her dad is a little traditional, hoped she'd meet a nice Harvard or MIT guy. Well, at this point, halfway through 3rd year, she has 2 lucrative job offers in hand from very prominent financial firms, in the field of international banking (economics/int.relations) after graduation, and she makes a fortune over the summer. She'll have engineers, lots of them, working for her. Good luck.</p>
<p>i cant really tell you what to do since im still dealing with this myself. im a first year at wellesley now... im also from california, have chinese parents, and want to be an econ major and my parents still think im not going to go anywhere in my life. i just try to tune it all out because we know wellesley is an amazing college and has so many opportunities to offer us that we arent going to wrong. good luck with your college decision!</p>
<p>The Econ students I know blather on all the time about their internships on Wall Street with Leman Bros and Goldmans Sachs and they are all obsessed with making $38345895893 dollars a year. </p>
<p>If you want to be an Econ student at Wellesley you are probably not destined for a cardboard box.</p>
<p>Your parents sound exactly like mine.. except my dad finally realized that some famous Chinese women went there. My mom, however, is still firmly convinced that Wellesley is some no name.</p>
<p>^Chang Kai-Shek is known as Jiang Jieshi on the mainland, and most books have changed how it's written from Wade-Giles to normal pingying (or include both). If I asked my parents about Chang Kai-Shek, they would give me weird looks.</p>
<p>And bringing Madame Chang Kai-Shek did help a bit. My mom lit up at the mention of her name, but of course she did graduate ages ago so it wasn't so helpful in explaining how it was a good school now.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses thus far, it's encouraging. I'll definitely pass along the econ prospects and testimonials.</p>
<p>I spent a couple hours on Google looking up stats and reviews, we watched the DVD together, and she talked to a friend of hers (a high school teacher) who apparently told her wonderful things about the school.</p>
<p>The grand irony of it all is that she wants me to go assuming finances are all sorted out. I asked her about visiting (I'm from California) and doesn't think it's necessary. A) Because I won't find anything wrong with the school, which is possible seeing as how Wellesley is Wellesley, Spring Open Campus wouldn't be the time to see the underbelly of life there unless I pulled a Nancy Drew, and I'm easy to please/impress (guilty). B) The costs, which I can understand. I'm still kind of shocked that gentle prodding led to a "if you're getting enough aid, you're going" turnaround. I'll have to work on this visiting thing.</p>
<p>Sidenote: if anyone who didn't get the DVD is still interested, I broke it up into five .mp4 files (iPod/Quicktime format). PM me for links.</p>