<p>I’m asian too, indian for the record…my dad is always on my back about the grades…after all the honors and ap classes i am taking they think with my grades the best i can do is community college…my mom works hard to pay for our education and they expect to be admitted to a respectable college…but if i don’t do the way my dad likes…he says he is not willing to pay for my education because i am not going to be “worth it”. By the time i am going to be eighteen…i will be out of the house, his exact words were IF…i know its not as bad as you but my brother applied to 20 colleges and went to UofI champaign and he’s the star of the family</p>
<p>Asian here as well. My mom isn’t too crazy about me applying to Ivy League schools mainly because of the skyrocketing tuition (no way Earth we could afford $30,000+ per semester). </p>
<p>We’re like literally on the poverty line and have been for a while. I know financial aid seems hopeful, but I can’t help feeling a little insecure given the current state of the economy and the fact that college tuition goes up every year. I don’t want to burden my mom anymore (given that brother’s expenses are enough of a burden). </p>
<p>Sometimes, I even wonder whether the cost is worth going an Ivy. Then again, it isn’t in my nature to equate cost to value of education b/c I tend to look at it if whether the time is worth the education.</p>
<p>dddddaaaaammmmmmmnnnn…</p>
<p>we are talkin about possibilities of not being able to get financial aid (even if you are at, a little above, or below thepoverty line), and the thoughts of those always bring thoughts of one certain administration.</p>
<p>you gotta love the Bush Administration, ruinin a million bright, promising, humane pre-college student lives financially… </p>
<p>runnin on empty: i give you luck. and doesn’t some of the ivy’s give you free aid if you earn below $60,000 or so? (i.e. yale, harvard, etc…) or did they yank that policy out?</p>
<p>lol. here’s my “history” or colleges (my mother would tell me :P):</p>
<p>grade 6: mommy saw me as an MIT student.</p>
<p>grade 9: mommy would love to see me get into UCLA</p>
<p>@ end of grade 10: would be fine if i went to UC Irvine.</p>
<p>right now: godsend if i got accepted to any UC… (-__-)</p>
<p>lol. expectations just keep on fallin… :</p>
<p>My dad thinks he’s required by law to make me write college essays during the summer. ■■■.</p>
<p>^That’s funny. =P</p>
<p>My parents are Asian and I live with my mom.
She never encouraged me to do anything, but I did them anyway.
Interested teachers ftw.</p>
<p>wow this post is old. but no my parents aren’t that harsh on me either because they no Harvard isn’t everything. see the thing is that they’d love to see me go there, but not with their money lol. but yes my parents are kinda nagging me to go to a “good school”.</p>
<p>I read the thread and though I would give my own $0.02. </p>
<p>My parents (Indian), or at least my dad, struggled through life, living with single parents, couldn’t afford college, and had to go back and study while working. Two months ago, he finished his Masters degree. Like my parents, I’m very self-motivated. My parents (and probably most of yours) worked very hard to bring you here, isn’t securing your future the least you could do (Not that going to Harvard means you’ll make 100k+, but in a sense). </p>
<p>My parents never pressured me, but they give me the gift of self-motivation and I thanks them for that, especially since I know much it took for them to get here.</p>
<p>My parents hardly ever encouraged me academically, so I never had someone breathing down my back when I made a C. They’d be happy if I went to college period (which I will of course).</p>
<p>My folks are fine with the whole “fit” factor and whether the campus atmosphere/teaching/setting suits me well, but when it comes to the name of the school, they still want the top 20 on the U.S. News and World Report list.</p>
<p>LOL “ivy or mcdonalds”</p>
<p>my asian parents are a lot like that, they were like “get into a good college and get good grades so i wont be embarrassed to tell my friends where you went”</p>
<p>If you have typical Asian parents -sympathies
If your Asian parents are atypical-lucky</p>
<p>I have heard that exact “Harvard or McDonalds” phrase from my Asian relatives, but luckily my parents aren’t as narrow minded. They want me to do well but they fret more about me finding a passion (aka a job that I will love but still guarantee me 200K a year). </p>
<p>My mom has always pushed reading as opposed to memorization on us when we were young, and as a result none of us are particularly science-y. I’m more of a social science person and cannot for the life of me imagine going into a science or math major. And I play sports! </p>
<p>We were all required to learn an instrument when we were young (I don’t think my parents were thinking of college, though, I think they just thought we would like it and it would teach us some discipline) but I was terrible at piano and burnt out after three years, lol.</p>
<p>I honestly think that a lot of the pressure stems from the very community of Asian-American families. My parents work all the time and don’t really gossip or associate with other Asian families. My aunt does and she’s ALWAYS comparing another Asian kid with her own (resulting in her son hanging up on her one time). Immigrant and first-generation Asians are always obsessed with prestigious colleges, but I think it also creates a hyper-competitive feel within the Asian networks that feeds this sick sort of need to one-up another Asian person’s kid and thus prove that they’re not a “failure” as a parent.</p>
<p>It’s kind of sad when you rate your love for your child based on their success. I can understand wanting the best for them, but we should all know we can’t always control peoples’ lives or life itself. Guilt-tripping and disowning your child because they chose the “wrong” college is stupid, no matter the culture.</p>
<p>Academically, my parents are just as stereotypical as yours. Athletically, no. My parents encouraged me to get involved in sports; they supported me lifting weights everyday. This is rather weird since I’m not an ABC-I came to the US when I was nine (I was born in China).</p>
<p>My parents don’t let me lift weights because they think I won’t grow tall if I do. I’m 6 feet tall right now. ■■■.</p>
<p>6’ 3’’ got you beat :D</p>
<p>^ tall Asians :o</p>
<p>I’m 5’9" and I thought I was tall for an Asian</p>
<p>Well, I’m not Asian and my parents really don’t care what I do. I guess that is a stereotypical non-Asian, or just what happens after already going through 3 kids in college.</p>