How can I convince my parents to let me study in NYU?

anneroku · April 13, 2009, 1:22pm

bloggergirl · April 13, 2009, 1:23pm

tranquil218: I neglected to mention that I have family living in the Tri-State area, because my intention of this post was to ask how I could convince my parents - if having family there would be able to convince them, I would have used that point long ago. Actually, my mother thinks that my sister is to blame for planting the idea of studying abroad in my head, and there’s a little animosity between them now. Mentioning that my sister would live right next door to me would only provoke my mother. A little background: my sister has a 15 month old son, and my mum is effectively experiencing the loss of two offsprings - a third, if you include me.

I have thought about whether my parents owe me an education or not. I suppose they don’t, but being the third child to attend university, it is quite a natural progression of things that they pay for my university education. Perhaps I shouldn’t be expecting them to pay for such an expensive eduation?

phantompong · April 13, 2009, 1:32pm

Only in the Times Higher Education Supplement - and NUS Business is definitely not ahead of Stern for graduate (in fact, NUS is ranked behind NTU in some graduate rankings). NUS’s undergraduate business program is even weaker.

The Times Higher Education Supplement has NUS’s International Faculty score at 100, which is due more to the fact there aren’t many Singaporean academics than to international faculty recruitment per se. NTU is down at 77 and also has an International Faculty score of 100. SMU has a higher ratio of international-to-local faculty than both schools (in fact, if I remember correctly, at least 50% of the faculty at each school is international). NYU, on the other hand, has a score of 28. Use a little imagination and imagine the rankings without the international faculty score. It gives both NUS and NTU a ridiculous boost. On that same ranking, NTU is ranked ahead of UVa, which has an international faculty score of 24. Yet you won’t find anyone who would go to NTU over UVa if cost wasn’t an issue.

I’ve also seen other studies that list NYU’s citations per faculty as twice that of NUS’s, but I think I read that in print so I’ll have to go look that up again.

I’d love to know how they come up with the individual subject scores… tell anyone here that NUS ranks above Penn or NYU for social sciences and you’re likely to get a laugh in your face. NUS also ranks above Texas, Michigan and UIUC for natural sciences… strange, then, that we should be sending our top science talent to those schools.

anneroku · April 13, 2009, 1:43pm

NUS is also ranked higher than NYU by U.S. News & World Report. Where is NYU ranked higher?

But OP is admitted for undergrad, not grad. Furthermore, an undergrad business degree is not necessary or even desirable for an MBA.

phantompong · April 13, 2009, 1:57pm

US News and World Report uses the Times Higher Education Supplement ranking. The ARWU has NUS somewhere in 102-150, along with, oh I don’t know, Dartmouth, probably.

Did you read what I said? NUS is known for graduate programs, and its undergraduate programs are even weaker relative to Stern. And the question is not whether it is necessary or desirable, but whether it is the best out of her options.

blossom · April 13, 2009, 2:23pm

All of the rankings debates in the world won’t change two facts here as I see them:

1- the OP lives in Singapore
2- OP’s parents don’t want her to go to college in the US.

Therefore, trying to find “factoids” to support the OP’s desire to move to NY and go to Stern seems to me to be something of a waste of time and energy. Either OP’s parents would be willing to craft a compromise (undergrad in Singapore, grad school in the US; undergrad somewhere else in Asia; Gap year in the US to travel, study, then back to Singapore) or they’re not. If they’re not, what difference does it make?

If they are willing to compromise, I would advise the OP to be spending time and energy scoping out alternatives to Stern, not in digging up random statistics to support the belief (whether true or not) that Stern offers outstanding advantages vs. the schools on the table.

mhmm · April 13, 2009, 2:46pm

If the OP is certain that she will be pursuing a graduate degree, it seems to me a smarter thing to do her undergrad locally, earn top grades and attend a top Grad School in the US. NYU of three years ago is not one of today, simply by virtue of being in NY – in the past 6 mos the city has changed tremendously. Many more homeless people begging, many more incidents of random violence and muggings in formerly safe neighborhoods. A lot of these do not get reported for obvious reasons.

cptofthehouse · April 13, 2009, 2:57pm

This is a really a parenting issue. There are many kids who go overseas for school or experiences and do quite well. But there are those who do not. Don’t know if it’s the distance, difference, or just the personality of the kids and luck involved. However, parents can have good reasons for wanting their kids to hold off on certain experiences. As we do not know you and your particulars, or your parents, it is really not fair for us to take one side or the other. There are a number of age appropriate activities that were not for my kids for some good reasons.

soozievt · April 13, 2009, 3:08pm

The issue is not so much which school is better. It seems to be about OP’s parents’ willingness to send her to the US for college. As far as scoping out alternatives to Stern, Stern is her only US option. Her cards are now on the table. The issue for me is that her parents went along with her applying to US schools enough to be OK with it and so I’m not sure what has changed. But I imagine they do fear having their D go to college in the US since their other child did so and stayed (now with baby no less). So, that seems to be the issue at hand. The OP would have to convince her parents why this option is the one she wants the most and why so more than the other ones she has. She needs to have a discussion with them about their hesitations and they try to address them on her end (showing understanding of their SPECIFIC concerns). I hope they will support her desires since they let her apply to those schools, but she will have to see. I hope she approaches them in a mature and reasonable way and not one full of emotion. That will help, OP!

tranquil218 · April 13, 2009, 3:16pm

Bloggergirl: here’s a thought. As I said earlier, the first paragraph of your earlier post explaining your reasons for wanting to go to Stern was most impressive. Have you discussed that portion of your argument with your parents? Frankly, as a parent, if my D came to me raving about her desire to go to a particular school far away and at great expense to her dad and me because of its location or ambiance or whatever, I would, without question, tell her to go jump in the lake. I would be far more inclined to listen to her if she could demonstrate why said school would be best for her in terms of career options and academics. Treat the subject with them as if you were making a proposal to a potential client - facts, figures, etc. Be calm, pleasant, and professional. See if that makes a difference.

2331clk · April 13, 2009, 3:18pm

Couple more: 1-OP wants to go to university in the US 
2-Her parents can afford to pay for this.

Therefore I think it’s worth the time and effort for her to hold some hope this may happen, and prudent to get outside input, if that would be helpful. Of course, just because they can afford to send her doesn’t mean they have to. A lot of complicated issues here.

anneroku · April 13, 2009, 3:25pm

I do think the issue of which school is better is relevant. OP is asking that her parents pay for a very expensive school on the other side of the world. I have seen no evidence to support the idea that NYU is in anyway superior to her local options. I do think that if she were able to show that NYU provides an educational advantage, this would be one way to persuade her parents. However, by international rankings and general reputation, NYU and NUS are in the same ballpark. Maybe in Singapore NYU holds some unusual level of prestige, but otherwise I can’t imagine how her parents would be convinced. Also, we don’t know which school the older sibling attended; maybe it was a college the parents felt was worth going abroad for.

blossom · April 13, 2009, 3:29pm

2331- sorry but I disagree. If OP really wanted to go university in the US there would have been more US schools on the list. Off the top of my head, U T at Austin, Ohio State, U Michigan offer very strong undergrad Business programs. If NYC was the only acceptable alternative, Fordham, Pace, Baruch all have undergrad business degrees and strong affiliations with the financial services sector. So I don’t blame the parents for looking at the results and wondering why all of a sudden it’s US or bust for undergrad.

Second, just because her parents could afford it back in September doesn’t mean they can afford it now. My kids are now out in the real world and working and finally understand that retirement portfolio’s go up and down (not just up.) So I don’t fault the OP for not getting that perhaps the parents finance have changed- but it’s presumptuous for total strangers to decide what they can and cannot afford.

“holding out hope” seems to me to be the only other fact on the table, and the one which may have cemented in the parent’s mind that this kid lacks the judgement and maturity to go to college thousands of miles away. Rather than putting together a realistic “plan B”, this kid is acting like a kid- and holding out hope.

Not a great way to move towards a compromise. And highly un-businesslike behavior for a future business person.

soozievt · April 13, 2009, 5:53pm

anneroku wrote:

I’m a parent, albeit NOT the OP’s parent. But as a parent, I can tell you that which school is “better” or “more prestigious” would have NO bearing as to which school I was willing to pay for. I’d be willing to pay the same amount of money no matter which school my kid chose. I am not of the school of thought where I would spend more for this school than that school due to prestige. If I was prepared to spend a certain amount on school, then my kid could attend any school for that amount and I would hope she picked and got into a school she really wanted to attend that fit what she wanted in a college. And if I were prepared to send my kids to a college overseas, I would not say I would pay for X college overseas but not Y college. The OP’s parents allowed her to apply to these three US colleges and I’d like to think that they approved of these before she applied.

While this makes LOGISTICAL sense to me too, it is not always necessarily true. I have seen many kids on CC who are unrealistic when building a college list and so perhaps this girl only applied to three US schools and assumed she’d have a choice and was not wise to improve her options of choices in the US by applying to more schools. She must have been considering schools in the US as she applied to three but not enough of them to help her chances. And her sister went to school in the US too. She may have felt that Penn or Columbia would come through.

blossom · April 13, 2009, 6:13pm

Soozie- it is hard to gauge a kid’s maturity from an anonymous message board, but you and I have been on here long enough to have seen kids who have methodical,well-thought out arguments for trying to change a parent’s mind… and then all the others.

If my kid wanted to go thousands of miles away, I would have needed a reasonable, fact-based outline which addressed my concerns, not some rant about how all the good jobs go to NYU grads. (kid won’t have a green card- so the jobs won’t be going to her anytime soon unless we fix our H1-B mess which for sure won’t be during this recession.)

I have no opinion where the OP should go. But I have many years of parenting under my ample belt, and when my kids want to change my mind, they do it with well thought out arguments that are devoid of emotion or petulance. Needing to be in the US for college and only applying to three hard to get into schools doesn’t look like a compelling argument for why this kid needs/wants a US education. Needing to be in NY for the business experience and not applying to Fordham or Baruch seems short-sighted to me. Needing to be in the US for the international experience and not realizing that Penn and Columbia had lottery ticket type odds shows either arrogance or just lack of preparation. Not coming up with a Plan B (summer work, an exchange program at a US university, applying for funding through fellowships to lessen the financial hit, etc.) would suggest to me as a parent that my kid wasn’t committed enough to the goal to develop a reasonable compromise.

If my kids had been interested in foreign study, I’d have happily paid for a very short list of schools overseas. Since I did an exchange program at a third tier university in Europe many years ago, I can state with very great certainty that I would most certainly NOT pay for a third tier university overseas just because my kid wanted the experience. Just because it is far away and exotic would not justify the cost, given how great the trade-offs are in other areas.

I don’t believe that parents are obligated to look at all choices as fungible even if they all cost the same. My son’s friends were surprised at his college list- mostly reach and safety. I was not willing to spend full freight to get a second rate engineering education at a private U when so many public U’s have top tier programs for so much less. I was not willing to spend 5 years of tuition at a 3/2 program when so many accredited programs exist which get a motivated kid out in 4 years.

So I don’t believe that the OP’s parents fork over the right to determine that Wharton is worth the money and Stern is not. I don’t know if I’d make that argument- but they’re within their right to do so.

soozievt · April 13, 2009, 7:11pm

Blossom, I fully agree that the OP’s list was not realistic or balanced if she truly wanted to study in the US (or in NYC). I also agree that she will need a well reasoned approach as to why she prefers NYU over her other options and not emotional reasons and so forth.

I also realize that all parents are different and I have read many cases on CC from parents themselves who are willing to pay more for an Ivy or elite school and if that doesn’t happen, then they prefer the state flagship and are not willing to pay the bucks they would have paid for Ivy for a school in between. I just am not one of those parents. I’m willing to spend the same on my kid’s college no matter which one they pick. But maybe I am the odd one? Doesn’t really matter but I just mentioned that in terms of another member talking about whether NYU was worth the money, etc. Certainly it is in the parents’ rights to decide which school is worth the money to them. In my view, however, the time to discuss that is before the kid applies (unless FA is a determining factor but it was not in this case it seems). I just am not into letting a kid apply to a school that they say they can afford and then not letting them go once they get in. Again, that is my personal opinion and the parents have every right to do as they see fit. It is their money after all.

From the little the OP shared, it comes across that the parents may have some fears about D going to the US for college and I would advise her to ask them specifically what their concerns are and then see if she can appropriately address them.

blossom · April 13, 2009, 8:02pm

Soozie, I don’t know which schools on your kids lists were the “also rans” but I know some parents who would rather their kid go to a private U than a public which I don’t really understand. This isn’t Ivy or bust- this is third tier private vs. top tier public.

To be blunt- I’ve hired engineers, and a kid from U Missouri at Rolla, all things being equal, is going to be better trained than a kid from no-name private U with a non-acredited engineering program. Doesn’t matter that tuition at no name private is three times that of Missouri. Doesn’t matter that half the folks at the grocery store have never heard of Missouri. It’s just better academics, stronger training, better faculty, better job prospects, more grad students doing higher quality research, etc. So if a kid wants to be an engineer, I would think that being at the better program is the optimal choice- and if that better program is cheaper than no name private U- it becomes a no-brainer.

There are lots of sub optimal private colleges and obviously plenty of parents willing to pay for them which is fantastic. I would not have been one of them. I didn’t tell my kid, “you either get into MIT or you go to the local state college and you can decide between elementary ed or early childhood education (the two programs it’s known for… everything else is third tier or worse)”. But that doesn’t mean that I would have encouraged applying at a whole slew of places that charge MIT prices for a sub-par experience. Decrepit labs, no grad students, no research grants, plus it takes 5 years to get out of there because the waiting list for core courses is a zillion miles long.

Price isn’t everything- but at least at MIT you know the administration is going to move heaven and earth to get your kid out of there in four years- and if it takes five, it’s usually because your kid finished the Masters and BS at the same time. Not so at low tier engineering private U- where 5 and 6 years are very, very common.

anneroku · April 13, 2009, 8:20pm

We can debate if an education is worth paying more for at one school rather than at another, but in this particular case and in this particular major, NYU seems to offer no discernible educational advantage over the OP’s local options. I can see why she is having a hard time convincing her parents. Yes, this discussion should have taken place before applications were submitted. Nevertheless, the parents have a right to object if the cost and distance don’t seem justified.

cptofthehouse · April 13, 2009, 9:03pm

I know parents here in the US who do not want their kids going to schools elsewhere even if the cost is not an issue and would be less abroad. There are other issues that parents consider. We do not know what they are.

cptofthehouse · April 13, 2009, 9:06pm

Heck, we have parents here who are reluctant to send their kids more than X miles away in this country. Accessibility is an issue in college admissions. I have a kid who is at least one plane transfer or a couple of days of driving away, and it was an issue in consideration. I know parents who draw a 3 hour circle around their home and consider those boundaries for colleges. There are parents who do not want kids living on campus. (or off campus on their own). The issues involved can be relevant and strongly so in many situations.

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