<p>Elliesmom, not all Harvard grads live in Boston. In fact, if they go to graduate school, they usually move. . . in fact, since something like 66% of this year’s Harvard admits have international experiences, they are very likely to move period. The movement and global connections, which are hard to quantify, are part of the difference.</p>
<p>It’s not crazy to want to go to Harvard, though it is crazy to expect a child to increase their ACT by 5 points, jeez.</p>
<p>“Gross exaggeration. There might be a few families with limited means who believe only HYPMS are worth the prohibitive cost of a private college, but it’s far from being a phenomenon prevalent in any community.”</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve only been imagining the posts that come out every March / April from students whose parents have told them that they have failed because they “only” got into Vanderbilt or Tufts or Emory or Carnegie Mellon, and not the Ivies. Or they “only” got into Cornell, the shame of it all. </p>
<p>^ True, but I’d assume Harvard alums concentrate in high cost of living places to a great extent than Missouri alums. </p>
<p>There’s also the fact, which I’m surprised hasn’t come up already, that outcomes - which of course includes more than financial outcomes, but that’s an easy enough metric - are driven as much if not more by the student body you start with as whatever value a university adds. If you did a great social experiment in which the admitted freshman classes of Harvard and Missouri had to switch for four years, while I suspect the average salaries of ones who graduated from Harvard rather than Missouri would increase and the average salaries of the ones who graduated from Missouri rather than Harvard would decrease, I don’t think you’d come anywhere close to a complete reversal.</p>
<p>“Absolutely. University of Missouri. Harvard. Tufts. Not much difference. In profs. Student body. Rigor. Future prospects.”</p>
<p>Let’s try this once more.
Of course there is a difference between Harvard and U of Missouri on most dimensions.
But that doesn’t mean that a good student couldn’t find and take advantage of opportunities at Mizzou, and it doesn’t mean that a nice, comfortable, upper middle class life couldn’t be had from a Mizzou degree.
And if people merely drove down the street in the affluent suburbs of St. Louis and Kansas City, they’d know that they were chock full of Mizzou graduates living very pleasant and nice lives. </p>
<p>It’s the difference between an abundance mentality and a scarcity mentality.<br>
Fenwaypark, you’re displaying a scarcity mentality - the top jobs only go to people from the top X schools, and once you’re past that, everything falls down a cliff. Why you believe that, I’m not really sure, but aside from the inevitable I-banking/consulting sub-threads, that’s really not true in America.</p>
<p>I think part of the American mentality is an abundance mentality - yes, Harvard is great, no doubt - but a “good kid” from Mizzou will ultimately do just fine in life. Indeed, I think there’s some of the Horatio Alger archetype in the American psyche. </p>
<p>" “you didn’t get into Harvard, so you might as well go to the state university” is almost a litmus test for being from a Chinese immigrant family". Hmm. For people living in states where the state university is reasonably good, I see nothing strange about this thinking. I’m quite puzzled by why so many people who are not getting aid will pay full private school costs for schools that may be comparable or not even as good as the public options. Yes, I know there’s the fit to consider, but to me, and I guess the Chinese immigrant families, fit alone would not be worth the significant extra cost. </p>
<p>Perhaps another way of putting it is, “We will mortgage the house to send you to Harvard, but not to Tufts (or Rice, or even Brown or Cornell).” I don’t think that’s a sensible attitude when considering US colleges.</p>
<p>Hunt is exactly right. Because it presupposes that there is some huge differential between Harvard and Rice / Brown / Cornell where one is worth mortgaging the house for and the others aren’t - that Harvard is top tier and the others are second-tier. And that’s not in keeping with reality. But people who come from a culture where the tiers are that finely drawn may indeed mistakenly think that we’re talking two tiers here. </p>
<p>Here are some more numbers, which don’t get at the intellectual differences, but do get at sources of parental fears and craziness: </p>
<p>Twenty-nine states allocated less money to higher education in 2011-12 than they did in 2006-7, and nearly half – 14 – provided at least 10 percent less than they did five years ago.
<a href=“State funds for higher education fell by 7.6% in 2011-12”>State funds for higher education fell by 7.6% in 2011-12;
<p>From the March 2014 publication of the National Education Association, I can see that Missouri is spending almost 13% less on higher education than it did in 2009. </p>
<p>Public higher education is in trouble. In many states, it is in serious trouble. This may not cause a arent to go crazy and insist their kid goes to Harvard, but it increases anxiety.
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<p>Perhaps, but if they take even a few minutes to look up some facts they can see that those schools are attracting overall much better students than most state U’s. There are tons of schools which don’t.</p>
<p>“Harvard or Bust”, catchy as it sounds, is describing an extreme case that doesn’t have much real meaning to the overwhelming majority of people. What we do see IRL is that families set their own bottom line, based on the state or local options they have and how much resource they could put together for their kids’ college education. That 'bottom line" could be HYPMS, the Ivies, or top 20 colleges… While I personally think that still takes it a little too far in defining excellent colleges too narrowly (for example, there are some great LACs that can really provide excellent education and opportunities), in principle it makes sense to look at college choice from the cost benefit perspective since they can be so expensive nowadays. I guess it’s still a topic debatable for a long while whether Harvard is worth $60K while Tufts is not, but make no mistake it’s not a debate for immigrants only. However, I think many could relate when I say if you have UCLA as your state flagship, there gotta be compelling enough reasons to go for Tufts for which you need to pay a lot more. As for “fit”, yes it’s of course nice to have but it could be a luxury for some families, and believe it or not, while there’s no stats that can demonstrate how many kids have found their “best fit”, most of them do fit in a variety of colleges reasonably well. </p>
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<p>I agree.</p>
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<p>I agree, and said as much</p>
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<p>Haven’t had the pleasure, but no reason to disagree</p>
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<p>Well, then I guess you are too. Can’t figure out why. Maybe your repetitive posting on this topic really means that deep down you actually do think everything falls off a cliff after the elites</p>
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<p>No, that is being dishonest.
Or are you saying that there are no Chinese immigrant children who are at Princeton, Yale, MIT, Caltech, U Chicago, Vanderbilt, UCB, UCLA, USC, Duke, Rice, Georgetown, etc…?</p>
<p>I find it sad that so many people make this about race (for whatever reason they seem to have).</p>
<p>Thurston Howell III did not think Yale was worth going to and it was Harvard or nothing. He wasn’t a Chinese Immigrant.</p>
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<p>Assuming the universe of information is CC, about how many of these posts are there each year? I do not read all the threads exhaustively like others may do. Just scan here and there.Maybe I see two or three? Surely no more than half a dozen? Maybe I am playing blind man and the elephant and I am missing how many? Hundreds?</p>
<p>Assuming the universe of information is the world outside CC, well in my travels I do not usually talk about these things. I can only comment about my community. The sentiments quoted above are not representative of my community</p>
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<p>No, you aren’t imagining them, you are over emphasizing them and have no context. 3M HS graduates every year. A poster on CC is hardly a representative of the larger group nor statistically valid. Secondly, someone complaining on a forum is often twisted around by people here. Did the parents really say they “have failed”? How many? </p>
<p>That is 100 kids too many that feel they have failed! CC is a small community…there are thousands more who feel the same. You may dismiss it fluffy, but each of those kids have a real story. Way to be cold.</p>
<p>@fluffy2017. Like 
…and I believe there are plenty of upper middle class/wealthy educated non-Asians especially where we live who believe if they weren’t going to Stanford then they would rather attend Berkeley or UCLA than the schools out east…</p>
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<p>I am dismissing it as a significant trend about Asians.
Of course people are disappointed. That is understandable.</p>
<p>There is a lot of selection bias here. “I read some posts on CC = trend!”.
No mention of all the Asian students who are delighted with getting into a non-HYMPS.</p>
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<p>People should experience disappointment. It’s okay not to succeed at everything. It is not a good idea to encourage thousands of students to wallow in self-pity.</p>
<p>“Thurston Howell III did not think Yale was worth going to and it was Harvard or nothing. He wasn’t a Chinese Immigrant.”</p>
<p>No Fluffy, he was an uncharted isle immigrant! Luckily he had Gilligan, the Skipper and the Professor on the island with him. Unless this is some other pop culture reference of which I’m unaware… I get your point, I just couldn’t resist commenting :)</p>
<p>Oh. And by trend I meant the comment students being told by their parents that they are failures. </p>