<p>May be it has been mentioned somewhere in this thread, but are your parents immigrants and if so are they from Asia? High achieving, highly educated immigrant parents often would like their child to go the best school they can afford. Best is a relative term but one way of looking at best is college rankings (not getting into a discussion on the merits of such a criteria). In that case Chicago ranks a lot higher than CC and your parents may feel that their money is not buying them the best.</p>