<p>Have a teacher he respects contact him. It doesn’t sound as if anything but another adult’s opinion is going to get through to him.</p>
<p>If your Dad is like many Asian adults, he wants respect (“face”).
When people ask him where his daughter goes to college, he wants to reply with a name they recognize.
Everyone at least recognizes “University of [State]”.
No matter how hard you try to explain how good Middlebury is by rattling off stats, the fact will remain that it lacks instant name recognition.</p>
<p>However, maybe your Dad has heard of John Deere? You could point out that the original John Deere, the inventor who founded the company, started out at Middlebury. Do you ever watch the evening news together at dinner time? If so, you could point out that the co-anchor of the PBS News Hour, Elizabeth Farnsworth, went to Middlebury. Has he heard of the fabulously successful Chinese American Tsai family (<a href=“Gerald Tsai - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Tsai</a>)? Christopher Tsai went to Middlebury. So did Felix Rohatyn (<a href=“Felix Rohatyn - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Rohatyn</a>). Dana Reeve, Christopher (“Superman”) Reeve’s widow, went to Middlebury.</p>
<p>I don’t know how helpful it will be to drop these (or other alumni) names. They might not mean much to your Dad. You could try pointing out that Middlebury is a “Little Ivy” (or “Potted Ivy”):
<a href=“Little Ivies - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies</a>
You also could suggest that if Middlebury were a country or territory, it would be one of the Asian “Little Dragons” (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong). How many Americans could point to Singapore on a map? </p>
<p>Will he join you on your campus visit? Middlebury has a very impressive campus that might sell itself to your Dad. The facilities look rich. The kids look rich. If you’re doing an overnight, try to get the college to fix you up with an Asian host. Explain your situation if you have to. Enlist your host as a co-conspirator. Try to get them to introduce your Dad to nice Asian kids who would speak to him with respect and make him feel welcome. </p>
<p>Hey, I’d rather go to Middlebury too, but the University of Delaware is a perfectly respectable school. You’re comparing apples to oranges. It sounds like your dad has a strong bias against LACs of any kind, regardless of how selective they are. He’s not alone in that opinion, so personally I wouldn’t waste a lot of energy trying to convince him that Middlebury is more prestigious. (UDel has plenty of famous alumni, too; just look them up on Wikipedia.)</p>
<p>UDel isn’t likely to feel like a continuation of high school, with a large number of students coming from out of state, especially since you’ve been admitted into their honors college. Try to have an open mind about what it may have to offer and maybe you’ll find your dad more open to Middlebury.</p>
<p>A Honda Civic is a perfectly fine car. But if you offer me a BMW for the same price as a Honda Civic, I think I’ll take the BMW. That’s essentially OP’s situation here. I agree that it may be necessary to get other adults involved. It appears that the dad may have the attitude (which I’ve seen before) of “You didn’t get into Harvard, so you might as well go to the state university.”</p>
<p>@Hunt: Yeah, my father did tell me “UPenn or UD”!</p>
<p>He’s very leery of LAC’s, but I’ve been asking him what he considers a good college and working with what he thinks would be best for me–I’m slowly proving that Midd trumps UD in most of his requirements. Gladly, all of these statistics and rankings <em>are</em> slowly changing his mind about prestige, but I really do feel like he wants that instant-name recognition that people would give for UD. That’s something I can’t control. And yes–UD is a great school, too, but I just think I would thrive better in Middlebury’s small campus.</p>
<p>ALSO!! I got emails back from both neuroscience depts. Here are some hard numbers:</p>
<p>Middlebury: “In general, roughly a 30-40% of our majors tend toward medical school, roughly 30% toward graduate school, and roughly 30% take jobs in teaching (in primary or secondary schools, Teach for America, etc.) in industry (e.g. pharmaceutical companies, biomedical companies), NGOs, or various other positions. Of the 219 Neuroscience grads (going back to Class of 2002), 89 have gone on to med school, or 41%. The number varies year to year, ranging from 26% to 52% based on the most current information. Our Health Professions Committee evaluated and recommended: 49 students last year; 43 were accepted at an 87% acceptance rate. This is consistent with most years.”</p>
<p>UD: “About 35 of our seniors identified as Neuroscience majors and of these students, 10 reported going into medical school or graduate programs (e.g., pharmacy, neuroscience, psychology. In terms of medical school, the choice of major isn’t the most defining feature of a student as long as they have taken the appropriate track of courses. There are lots of examples of our students with majors in history or other non-traditional majors who have successfully gone on to medical school.”</p>
<p><a href=“Best, Brightest and Rejected: Elite Colleges Turn Away Up to 95% - The New York Times”>Best, Brightest and Rejected: Elite Colleges Turn Away Up to 95% - The New York Times;
<p>Read the second to last full paragraph. “The New York Times” places Middlebury in very good company.</p>
<p>I am a big fan of Delaware. Great campus environment, pleasant college town, great football uniforms, solid academics etc… But if cost is the same, and you aren’t interested in Engineering (especially Chemical Engineering), Middlebury is a better option. </p>