<p>What are the most common causes of parent-student conflict over college choice?</p>
<p>Seems that, based on the threads appearing here, some of the more common ones are:</p>
<p>a. Perception that the parents overpromised and underdelivered with respect to money for college (e.g. initially letting the student believe that they will be able to afford any college, but saying something different after application deadlines have passed).</p>
<p>b. Tiger parents.</p>
<p>I would say:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Costs </p></li>
<li><p>Location</p></li>
<li><p>Difference of opinion on majors/strength of programs</p></li>
</ol>
<p>ucbalumnus’s first item seems to be the biggest one. A lot of parents are uncomfortable discussing the details of family finances with their children, but without such a discussion, the child cannot truly understand what the family can and cannot afford.</p>
<p>A variant on it is when the parents don’t truly understand the financial realities of paying for college. These are the parents who think that “meets full need” implies that their child will automatically get a financial aid package that will enable the child to attend the college without financial hardship for the family. In these families, the fact that their child cannot afford to attend some of the colleges that accepted him/her comes as a rude springtime surprise.</p>
<p>Add divorced parents to this and you add geometrically to disputes.</p>
<p>When my DD was looking to transfer, I sent list of schools to X, and said that some did not guarantee housing (and he knows these to be high COLA areas). He OK’d transfer apps. </p>
<p>Needless to say, she gets accepted to School A (rah rah rah) and we are struggling to find housing. He says it must be less than x per month. Does not go look at apartments with her/me. There is nothing in that price range. </p>
<p>Eventually through MY pounding the sidewalk, we find something highly unusual but workable. My blood pressure went through the roof.</p>
<p>Yes, even without divorce the faction between H & W can be a problem. In our house it is DD and W against H. H can’t imagine what could possibly be better than state flagship, while W believes DD needs smaller environment of private LAC. For H the issue is $, even though the savings are sufficient.</p>
<p>Add to the list…</p>
<p>kid wants to go to a particular college because boyfriend/girlfriend is going there or is going to one very close by.</p>
<p>Mostly we argue about the ecs I’m allowed to take at school… My parents are not really tiger parents, but neither do they endorse having jazz band, ap music theory, and ap art in the same year. They also forced me to drop marching band, but looking back making me drop some elective classes was a good idea and my parents weren’t making me miserable; just trying to help me.</p>
<p>Tiger parents/US News fanatics. </p>
<p>“NO YOU MUST GO TO X INSTEAD OF Y BECAUSE X IS RANKED 2 PLACES HIGHER ON USNEWS!”</p>
<p>My parents are prestige-obsessed, and they take the US News rankings VERY seriously. When decisions come back, I know for sure that they’ll make me go to the highest-ranked school I get into, no question. They said that if I get into UCLA (1st choice) and UC Berkeley, while I highly doubt that would happen, they’d make me go to UCB without a second thought because it’s ranked higher.</p>
<p>I’d add “difference of opinion as to value for price paid.” </p>
<p>We didn’t actually have conflict over this…in the end. But our kids grumbled when we first asked them to come up with “proofs” (yeah, think calculus) for each serious contendor, i.e., grade how each school measured up on a list of factors material to weighing value. While they had a ballpark idea of comparative costs, we didn’t assign price tags representing our actual COA calculations until after they had completed the proofs and ranked the schools accordingly. There were a few aha moments on both sides! </p>
<p>This exercise was most helpful in critically reviewing the several top contendors that were at the $50K mark, give or take (the idea that only the “elites” cost $50K is a fallacy!) (insert rant about the ever-escalating cost to attend college). Then, we were well-equipped to resolve the conundrum over state flagship vs. more costly elite. </p>
<p>I often wonder if “tiger kids” led their parents through this exercise, the presitge factor would assume its proper contextual role. </p>
<p>I dunno…YMMV.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If the “tiger kids” were like the ones at my high school…even the most hardscrabble working-class families would sacrifice everything to send their kids to the highest ranking schools. These families are the types who feel there’s a 1:1 correlation between USNWR and educational quality and will wear rags, eat simply, live extremely crowded in the cheapest housing arrangements they can, and have themselves and older siblings who weren’t considered “college material” work overtime to come up with the tuition payments. </p>
<p>It’s prestige uber alles…especially considering that from their perspective…they don’t have any connections/social capital to build off of unlike Americans of the second generation and later. There’s a real fear that in their cases…going to “podunk U” will mean they/their kids are going to have an insurmountable struggle to make it into the mainstream American middle class culture…much less the upper-middle or the wealthy. </p>
<p>What’s more amazing is that in the cases I’ve seen…their college kids always seem to end up graduating and succeeding in gaining a highly prestigious and lucrative jobs in medicine, engineering, ibanking, law, business, etc. Unfortunately, the real damage, if present, only comes several years down the line when a substantial minority end up in therapy or worse.</p>
<p>Money.</p>
<p>Along with tiger parents, I’d say, the “misinformed” parents - which could certainly fall under tiger parents. My mum certainly leaned towards a school that was not my state flagship simply because she believes state flagships generally are bad (she knows schools like UCs, UVA, etc. are good though… but tell her something like UMich and she’d be like “you wha”)</p>
<p>I’ve realized now that going to my state flagship would’ve been a financially better choice, as I would’ve completely avoided debt. However, I do feel the quality of my education to be better, but I still could make the best of my opportunities at my state flagship (the internships available in my home city is ridiculously awesome - why didn’t I see this before?)</p>
<p>cash money.</p>
<p>Plenty of lazy non-tiger kids end up in therapy too. The tiger kids I know are smart and well-adjusted. I wish more parents would hold their kids accountable for their grades and stop blaming the schools…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The conundrum I don’t understand is the one between state flagship vs. more costly private school that ranks lower than the flagship. I cannot fathom how such colleges attract students (other than the few who get merit scholarships).</p>
<p>No conundrum, Marian - a rational calculation. It’s not about rankings vs cost: It’s about fit and the relative opportunities vs. cost.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sometimes, the student did not get admitted to the public school, but did get admitted to the private school. For example, there was one post listing the acceptances and rejections of each (numbered, not named) student at some high school. There were a lot of students who got into USC but did not get into UCLA, for example. Of course, in this case, the choice is basically already made, so the student and parents are not debating about it (although the choice to apply involved some of the thinking that you are referring to).</p>
<ol>
<li>cost</li>
<li>location</li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>No one I knew back when I attended high school…whether at my public math/science centered magnet or at my neighborhood public schools blamed teachers/schools for bad grades. The default was to always fault the student in question first. That wasn’t just tiger parents…that’s everyone I knew back when I was growing up till end of high school. </p>
<p>Also, any student with lazy tendencies who were not at least supersmart ended up choosing to leave my NYC math/science magnet because the workload, competitive atmosphere, and peer pressure from teachers and better performing classmates tended to be too much for them. There’s a reason why my entering high school class had around a 28% attrition rate…mostly within the first two years. </p>
<p>If anything…one problem I found with kids from lower-middle class and working-class background among us…with the exception of a few like myself is that they’re extremely reluctant to challenge teachers/Profs EVEN WHEN THEY WERE WRONG. </p>
<p>Experienced that with one HS friend who had a Calc prof at a current Top 10 university with an animus against Engineering majors and possibly against racial minorities* and gave him an F even though he should have averaged B+/-A according to the Prof’s own syllabus and his problem set/test grades. It was so blatant that once his friends…myself included convinced him to file a complaint with the school…both the Engineering and Arts & Sciences Dean immediately went to bat for him. Unfortunately, it did take 2 full years before the grade was corrected…and that jerky Prof decided to suddenly retire a semester after the friend’s course so the school couldn’t do anything to punish him once they decided the Prof was indeed wrong. </p>
<ul>
<li>He was bi-racial…half-Black, half-Chinese.</li>
</ul>
<p>Why did it take two years for the problem to be corrected?</p>
<p>Also, could the school have enacted punishment through the now-retired professor’s pension?</p>
<ol>
<li> money, money and money</li>
<li> whether school x is worth all the money it costs, including room & board, tuition & other expenses</li>
<li> how much debt is do-able vs. too much</li>
</ol>