<p>blueducky–My bet is that Intel wants to know if you have scientists in your family so they can assess whether your work is truly your own or whether it’s something mommy or daddy set up for you.</p>
<p>Making clear your parents are extraordinary will turn off the admissions officers. It is just not the right note to hit with Yale. Frankly, it could be the thing that would keep you out despite a flawless app because Yale doesn’t want to risk having a student with an attitute like that on campus.</p>
<p>Okay, I know i’m not that special. Intel asks for all your relatives if they were scientists, I thought it had something to do with genetics and your likelihood of being creative or something. Hmm.</p>
<p>I don’t have a flawless app. Far from it.
That was the only reason why I even bothered with this topic. I’m sorry if i came off as some type of self-important dunce. </p>
<p>My parents’ friend told me I should mention this stuff. Like they want to see that you have the right background to succeed. </p>
<p>Btw, I never mentioned this to Yale at all. I was just thinking about mentioning it… Not anymore though.</p>
<p>Blueducky, Yale is not interested in whether your parents are predominant in their field because they then believe there is a genetic legacy and you will be destined for great things too. If such were the case, they wouldn’t bother with diversity efforts - they’d go only after the sons / daughters of those already successful in a given field.</p>
<p>Yale is interested in whether your parents are <em>prominent</em> (as in Cabinet secretary, prominent businessman of the Bill Gates variety, notable artist) because they hope to cultivate relationships with those people, including but not limited to donations. </p>
<p>For the 99% of applicants who don’t have prominent parents, the only reason they ask for the parental occupations is to get some measure of the environment the kid grew up in (a child of two doctors is most likely more privileged than a child of a janitor and a truck driver). That helps them evaluate the environment, along with such markers as the high school, but it does NOT help them evaluate how smart the student is or how much potential he / she has in life. Yale doesn’t say, oh wow, this student is the child of two doctors, he must be smart, let’s admit him and he’ll do great things too.</p>
<p>“Also, you say this could possibly hurt me because my parents are accomplished and more is expected, but I would like to point out that even if i don’t mention this part, they already know that my parents are already engineers. So comparing me to a first-generation college student is already impossible. While my parents are in academia, why does it hurt to make it clear that they were extraordinary?”</p>
<p>Because Yale’s definition of extraordinary includes national and/or international prominence. Not just “really smart and accomplished,” which I have no doubt your parents are.</p>
<p>I totally regret bringing up the pastry chef thing. :X</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I understand, I really do.
The odd thing is, I kind of knew this all along, but I still let my parents’ friend convince me that this would somehow set me apart or something. Now i’m back to where I started.</p>
<p>IMO this actually does reflect a pretty interesting cultural difference between the US and China. Whereas the basic social ‘building block’ of Chinese culture is the family, in the US it’s the individual. Thus the OP would overestimate the value of family prominence in US college admissions. I’m not saying this with any condescension or w/e, it’s just an interesting sociological observation that may or may not be true.</p>
<p>I think some of us are reading too much into this. OP thought that perhaps because his parents are eminent engineers, that the Yale admissions officers might guess he had a good scientific background and give him a leg up. Innocent mistake to make, and I don’t think it reflects on Chinese culture just because OP happens to be Chinese.</p>
<p>I agree it’s an innocent mistake; it was also something that the parents’ friend (who I’m going to guess is Chinese) was counseling blueducky to do. And that in and of itself is a much more Chinese cultural thing to do - to be interested in / involved with / give counsel to the children of your friends. Here in America, I wouldn’t consider where my friends’ children apply to be any of my concern or business, other than a passing “oh isn’t that nice, good luck to him / her.” And it would be decidedly odd for my friends to give input on my children’s college applications, unless they were college admissions officers or something of that nature.</p>
<p>It’s nothing cultural. I don’t even think it is a “Chinese thing” to give advice. I mean, he is just friendly.</p>
<p>The friend thought he was helping, he is a scientist himself and he knows how having certain backgrounds may help in certain science-related careers, perhaps not college admissions.</p>
<p>For example, one girl at Cal had fantastic scores but she emphasized the fact that she had scientists for parents and perhaps that kind of set her apart. She was already done with undergraduate study and was competing for a spot at UCSF. I know there were other factors definitely that contributed to her acceptance, but I don’t believe that just because she had scientists for parents necessarily HURT her. I just don’t see how such a positive background could possibly discredit somebody with already good credentials, that’s all. If anything, it will be taken neutrally.</p>
<p>Your background will neither discredit you nor help you, bd. It’s basically irrelevant for admissions purposes. An applicant with an alumni parent gets a small boost in admissions. An applicant with a parent who is genuinely famous – a major Hollywood or TV celebrity, a current U.S. Senator, a current or former U.S. President, a Pulitzer or Nobel prize winner, a huge business power broker on the level of Bill Gates, etc. has a potent hook for admissions purposes. So does an applicant whose parent is willing to donate enough money to make the applicant a developmental admit. That’s about it.</p>
<p>blueducky, see post #21. This is the best advice you’re going to get on this subject. </p>
<p>You need to stand apart from your parents and present yourself and your accomplishments and experiences. Talking about anything your parents have done (good or bad) is not relevant in college admissions. Neither the Nobel Prize nor time in prison is part of the discussion. You can discuss your visits to prison or, if you co-authored the Nobel-prize-winning work then OK to mention.</p>
<p>I really hope you don’t still think i’m being arrogant. I have already conceded to these points. I KNOW it won’t help. I don’t know why you guys are still patronizing me. I made a mistake, and I have acknowledged it.</p>
<p>Just a side note from your post #31: My dad immigrated from the Philippines, and doesn’t call it the University of San Francisco. He calls it the University of Snobby Filipinos :P</p>
<p>No one is patronizing you, blueducky. You asked an honest question and people answered it. Your parents’ friend was undoubtedly well-meaning when he made his suggestion; no one doubts his sincerity and his desire to help you. We’re just making the point that college admissions officers don’t take into account what your parents do / did in determining how smart they think you are (they can’t assume you’re smart based on your parents’ accomplishments; they look at your own scores and grades). And in the cases where college admissions offers care about what your parents do, it is because they want to establish relationships with them, including but not limited to donations.</p>
<p>Let me give you a real life example. My alma mater, Northwestern, has a very prestigious theater program. Meryl Streep’s daughter, Mamie Gummer who is now an actress herself, applied and went there. Now, Meryl Streep is a famous, award-winning actress. It may have helped her daughter get in (I am not suggesting that Ms. Gummer wasn’t otherwise qualified), but not because they said “Oh, her mother’s a fine actress, she must have genetically inherited the propensity to be a good actress from her mother,” but because I am sure at one level they hoped that Ms. Streep would donate at a high level, perhaps teach / lecture / show up at student shows and otherwise lend her prestige. See the difference?</p>
<p>blueducky, I certainly didn’t intend to patronize you, either. You asked a question whose answer was far from intuitive, and I think you graciously accepted that the answer was not what you thought it would be.</p>
