<p>So I posted here in the international forum basically because I thought that the situation might be more familiar to students like you who have to go very far away from home in an entirely different culture, though the others are more than welcome to give advice!</p>
<p>Two colleges that I applied to gave both acceptance letters and significant aid packages that make it financially possible to attend, namely NYU Shanghai and Franklin & Marshall College. NYU reduced the COA to $8k, while F&M reduced it to $5k with a $3k loan. I don't think that the $3k difference will be very hard to find (at least not like, say, $10k) and that, in any case, I could probably ask their respective financial aid offices for a bit of extra, so finance isn't the problem.</p>
<p>The problem is that my parents don't want me to go to NYU Shanghai 'because it's in China.' I mean, sure, they might still have a bit of that Cold War attitude towards communist states that came together with a very negative perception of China pervasive in our country. Sure, Shanghai isn't exactly the safest or most organized place in the world with the friendliest citizens, but I really don't think it's enough of a reason to make me go to F&M instead.</p>
<p>I feel like I'm missing out on a really great opportunity to go to a really good school that can offer both personal interaction with faculty and students, like in an LAC, and the breadth and depth in academics you can find in a university for a very small fraction of the price. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong though, I think F&M is a really great school, and I think the house system and the academics are pretty good, but you know how it is in the job market if you're in Asia or places other than the US. The name/prestige kind of matters more and going to F&M over a top local uni might even close, rather than open doors for me.</p>
<p>If you've got any advice on how to get my parents to get along with the idea of NYU Shanghai, please do post!</p>
First, get your arguments straight. NYU Shanghai is tiny and you’ll find far fewer courses and resources there than at F&M. (For example, NYU Shanghai reports to have 57 faculty members, while F&M has 288.) </p>
<p>On the other hand, you do have a very real concern about reputation. FWIW, international students who attend LACs in the US usually go to graduate school afterwards because they cannot easily find employment, either in the US or at home. </p>
<p>Try to take on a different perspective. Instead of trying to convince your parents, think of your situation as, “Trying to make the best decision, with the help of my parents.” Talk to your parents about the advantages and disadvantages of each option you have. Do your parents understand how much a degree from F&M will limit your employment options? Do they think it matters? Is safety really a concern in Shanghai? (A degree from a better-known university is no good if you’re dead… but Shanghai probably isn’t that unsafe. Do educate yourself and your parents about the safety issues involved.)</p>
<p>Let your parents know that their opinion matters to you and that you hear their concerns. And if your parents have a valid argument, do consider that F&M may be the better choice after all. (There are worse prospects than getting a PhD before you hit the labor market, as you’d probably do after F&M. You might even get your PhD from a university more reknown than NYU. I went to Bryn Mawr for undergraduate and now I’m a PhD candidate at Stanford.) </p>
<p>Right. Clearly I haven’t had enough research under my belt with regards to the offerings at NYU, and it is a concern for me, though NYUSH still offers a course in economics. Maybe I can point out something about NYU’s economics faculty, but I’ll have to do some work finding out more. It looks like their faculty roster is set to grow though, since they’re openly hiring new professors.</p>
<p>Also I might have just been frustrated that day because I felt like they were closing the door on NYUSH without even discussing yet, but there should be a lot to gain from real discussion of concerns, as you said. I mean, at it’s worst they were telling me that China could have fabricated the whole MH370 crash to make Malaysia feel like it owes something to it and that a new Cold War was starting. I understand their concerns, since it was their generation that experienced the worst of that era, but we’ll still sit down and talk, and hopefully it doesn’t descend into an exchange of non-constructive points.</p>
<p>Did some research on Shanghai’s safety too. Apparently, petty crimes and scams are quite common, but murders and the like are not. Overall, it’s still regarded to be safer than most large cities around the world. </p>
<p>Graduate school right after F&M doesn’t seem likely for me though. I’m assuming it’s going to cost quite a bit of money and I’m not quite sure that I’ll be able to afford it. In the scenario that they do take a hard stance on NYU, I’ll probably head out for a good local uni instead.</p>
<p>Thank you so much barium! What really stood out for me was ‘making the best decision with help of my parents,’ since they might be more partial to listening if I take such a stance, although to be honest with you, my heart still leans strongly towards NYUSH. I don’t know if that’s reasonable from an outsider’s perspective, but in any case, more opinions would be helpful!</p>
<p>If your parents can actually pay both, I’d say you go to NYUSH because it’s the college you want. If you are going to study a technical career, like an engeneering or computer science, I’d say you go to Shangai because, well… China is more industrialized and technologically advanced. Perhaps the laboratories and such stuff would be better there, but I’m NOT sure. It’s just an inference I have. </p>
<p>I don’t know anything about NYUSH though, but I can say that F&M is amazingly good! But if you’re decided on going to NYUSH, then try to find more info about shangai, the school, etc and tell your parents the pros. I’m sure they will let you go if you persuade them in a good way.</p>
All universities are hiring new faculty each year; that doesn’t automatically mean that they are expanding. Do take into account that many of NYUSH’s faculty have temporary positions (e.g. 1 year only) and need to be replaced. </p>
<p>I’m also wondering if NYUSH can expand at all. I would imagine that space is hard to come by in Shanghai. Where would they house more students or teach more classes?</p>
<p>Right now NYUSH’s curriculum is rather limited; all of the core courses for each major are there but hardly any electives. Unless you know for sure that the university will expand, I would not count on more courses than currently listed in the college catalog. </p>
<p>
Graduate school is actually a lot easier to finance than college. A typical PhD student will get a full tuition waiver and a stipend sufficient to cover living expenses. (Right now, typical stipends are on the order of $12,000 to $36,000 a year.) And you can attend a PhD program right after college if you so choose. </p>
<p>I don’t know what your long-term goals are. If you are hoping to settle down in the US eventually, or simply to get an advanced degree from the US, F&M might actually be your better option. F&M will have the resources to prepare you for graduate admissions at American universities. NYUSH does not - you won’t have access to upper-level courses, and the instability of the faculty will hinder your ability to obtain strong letters of recommendation. (If most professors are only there for a year, they are not terribly invested in the students’ success, nor able to work with you for extended periods of time.)</p>
<p>If all you want/need is a Bachelor’s degree from an ‘American’ university with name recognition, and then you want to go back home (I assume ‘home’ is another Asian country?), NYUSH might be a good choice after all, despite all of its academic shortcomings.</p>
<p>You’re right about the faculty, although the Shanghai government did help provide for a campus. The website says that the gross floor area for the new campus minus the dorms is 63,000 square meters. No idea if that’s a good number though.</p>
<p>And yes, I plan to return home after college, and maybe get a graduate degree only after working for some time, so even if I realize now that NYUSH is not quite all I thought it was, and that there will be serious deficiencies in academic opportunities that will lead me to graduate school, it might still be a better option considering once again the tendency of employers in foreign countries, particularly in Asia where I live, to lean very strongly towards ‘name’ schools, unjustified as that is.</p>
<p>But really, thanks for the input barium and guile19! If it wasn’t obvious, I don’t really have an awful lot of knowledge in these matters and neither do I have close friends or relatives to talk with who’ve been through the process of going to an LAC, then to grad school abroad like you (barium) did, so to give these objective points was really helpful in illuminating the situation.</p>
<p>You parents’ concern about the conflict between China and Malaysia is not unreal.
China is bullying Southeast Asian countries and they illegally claim the islands in the region to gain marine resources like oil, fishes,… and military power. The conflict between China and Southeast Asia is bigger than the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.</p>