I’m a bit concerned the parental behavior described by OP is being solely associated with immigrants/first gen families when there are multi-generationed Americans…including some from upper/upper-middle class homes who do the same.
Couple of examples I knew of/personally knew firsthand:
One example was an engineering colleague of a former supervisor turned friend whose upper-class WASP father threatened to disown and banish him if he failed to gain admission or refused to attend Princeton in keeping with a multi-generational tradition back in the late '60s.
Another example was a Vietnam Vet/retired Marine NCO who was extremely obsessed about focusing his son’s entire lifestyle* on preparing to gain admission to and attend Federal Service Academies…preferably Annapolis. This father was openly disappointed and yes, even angry with his son when he failed to gain admission to any of the FSAs despite the fact he earned a full AROTC scholarship to a local private college for all 4 years. Anger was not only the fact he wasn’t attending an FSA…but also he was going into the Army rather than the Marines…
That son was my elementary school classmate and last I heard, he hasn’t talked with his father for several years after HS graduation…even after he graduated college and was commissioned into the US Army.
- I.e. Mandating he kept his room in a rigidly organized manner as young as 8 years old similar to how some friends and a relative who attended an FSA described a SAMI inspection, disciplining him publicly like a recalcitrant Marine recruit when he was notified of misbehavior in school by forcing him to do pushups in a public park in front of everyone in the old neighborhood. Even the son's uncle who was also a 20 year retired Marine NCO, my father who was a conscripted junior commissioned officer in the ROC(Taiwan), and several older men who were veterans felt this father was being excessive and tried getting him to let up to no avail.