<p>@morkatmom </p>
<p>You got it</p>
<p>The point is that “Harvard or bust” is not an immigrant thing that some people keep trying to make it. </p>
<p>Did the professor go to caltech or mit? </p>
<p>Way to edit and back peddle.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From that most scholarly and accurate of all resources (wikipedia): “Besides a list of degrees from various schools (including USC, UCLA, SMU, and TCU) he provides in one episode, little was ever learned about his past and nothing was ever learned about his family.”</p>
<p>I do think there’s a sense among the Asians in our community that if the student does not get into what the parents consider a tippy top school, then the state flagship is where they should go. It’s only worth a large expenditure for the top 15 or so universities. I don’t ever see them opting for the very good private LAC’s, in part due to their perception that colleges are not as good nor as prestigious as larger universities. My kids’ Asian friends didn’t even apply to schools like Williams, Amherst or Middlebury, much less to schools a little farther down the rankings, like Colgate. In fact, my son’s best friend had to spend days convincing her Chinese parents that Dartmouth College was a good school. I don’t know where the line would be drawn for universities, but I never knew of any Asian from our town who went to Tufts, for instance. NYU, UMich (engineering), and WashU yes. </p>
<p>@gravitas2 </p>
<p>I agree
Thinking about though it seems that it is based on fit. Between the tech angle for some and the california experience I can see how those choices are made. </p>
<p>I know plenty of people whose kids made those choices for those reasons. </p>
<p>Only one thing coming through to me, on this thread: in our own ways, we are all the crazy parents mentioned. We can’t shut up.</p>
<p>Some posters, who haven’t been on CC long, don’t know some of the breadth of what others have picked up on, over time. (Some of you haven’t even been through the admissions ring of fire.) And, some of us are repetitive (you noticed?) because some of the rest of you keep going so off on tangents in your understanding of what we say. Putting forth your own straw men for I-have-no-idea what reasons.</p>
<p>Too many people (I don’t care what race, color, religion, height, SES, region, or their own education levels or striving status or when they immigrated from where) look to the tippy top schools as some crutch. As if you can’t get ahead in the tech world without Stanford. Can’t have your or snowflake’s special intelligence and potential pampered at a variety of schools. And, apparently willing to state it, outright. And then measure it in $$$. As if. </p>
<p>Maybe your 16 or 17 year old kid wants IB in NYC, not working for a bank in rural Arkansas. But there is a lot more that goes into preparing them to grow and become successful than the name on the sheepskin. Looking at this through one lens only (Harvard produces x% who go into finance or Stanford sends more kids to SValley,) is so narrow. It doesn’t say you kid will be empowered there. Or competent to do the work and move onto his chosen path. It doesn’t guarantee your kid will end up in NYC or SV versus rural Arkansas. If you love them and believe in them, take a look at who they really are, where they will personally thrive. Not just this same old hierarchical thinking. </p>
<p>@lookingforward </p>
<p>Yes, Stanford and Berkeley are the top choices. California is great 
If not, than England or Canada (same weather as on the east cost, but much cheaper + doesn’t have holistic affirmative action). </p>
<p>My daughter is a typical teenager. She doesn’t know what she wants to do in her life. In her age, neither I nor my husband knew what we would like to do in our lives. My husband got “his calling” in his 20s, I changed my career in early 30s. My brother-in-law knew that we wants to be an engineer since he was 10 years old; no he is not working as an engineer. :)</p>
<p>Top university gives kids flexibility to try different venues, yet get a “brand-name” education. </p>
<p>
These figures may lead some to believe that the Harvard students “got something” at Harvard that the students at Missouri did not. But that’s not really the case. If as an experiment we switched 1,000 students for 4 years, you’d likely see the salaries reversed. It is the quality of the accepted student that leads to any elite school “advantage.” Extensive research by Dale and Krueger has twice shown this.</p>
<p>Oh, excuse me. I’m back. I’m embarrassed to say that I had to go do a search on the Thurston Howell reference. I had never heard of him, although this seems to be a pop culture reference I should be well aware of. Thanks CC community! (By the way, is Thurston Howell III the same person as plain old Thurston Howell? Or are they two different people?)</p>
<p>I am not back peddling </p>
<p>My comment always was about the idea of parents saying their child is a failure a</p>
<p>It happens. It is terrible. But you can’t draw a straight line through 10 or 100 data points to prove a trend when you have 3m hs grads. </p>
<p>A lot of confirmation and selection bias. </p>
<p>@Ellimom: it’s not a clothing store, but thanks for analogy.</p>
<p>Imagine a headline: “Last year, 100,000 girls paid $100 application fee to try to fit into size 0. However, only 5% of them succeeded”. On the other hand, we see headlines like: " “Last year, 100,000 applicants paid $100 admission fee to Stanford. 5% of them were admitted”. </p>
<p><let’s try="" this="" once="" more.="" of="" course="" there="" is="" a="" difference="" between="" harvard="" and="" u="" missouri="" on="" most="" dimensions.=""></let’s></p>
<p>Yup. Mizzou has one of the best journalism schools in the country. Harvard doesn’t. It really all depends what you want in a college!</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl </p>
<p>“that a determined, motivated smart kid can get almost anywhere he needs to go” … bless this motto. </p>
<p>Let’s start with the first step, and send the determined, motivated, smart kid into Ivy-Stanford-Caltech-MIT. Why wait for 4 years in a second-tier college? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We are on the same page, Hunt. In the past I have made such distinction (based on analyses of the Model Minority) and Mini never hesitated to add to the issue by pointing out the differences between the subgroups who were displaced from urban areas and came to the US with advanced degrees and the other immigrants from rural areas. There is indeed a stark difference in academic achievements between the subgroups as income might not be the best proxy for parental education. Hmongs and Khmers, for instance, face different set of issues, including their acculturation and assimilation in a high stakes western world. </p>
<p>And, as you pointed out, the phenomenom is not exclusive to Asians. Some have pointed out the greatest success of children of Blacks from the Caribbean or Africa in admissions at HYPS with correlation to the higher education (or income) of this group. </p>
<p>This said, and within the context of this thead, I still believe that the most visible and tangible evidence of craziness (or obsession) is seen among the Asian population in the United States. </p>
<p>Californiaa, glad to see you write that she’s typical, etc. But you also wrote in another post that she wants to go to Stanford- which I suspect is really what you want for her. Top U’s only give kids flexibility if they fit the particular scene- that’s more than being bright in math and going to an MIT or Stanford. Is she research-oriented or entrepreneurial? No way you can say that, at her age. (I doubt you even really know what the different flavors are, at different schools- just their obvious reputations, as stated in some media blurbs.) Maybe she’ll prefer a less competitive school, where she can lead the pack, draw all sorts of attention and win opportunities. You have a lot to learn about what Stanford or Harvard is really about- and what sorts of kids can thrive there. This isn’t about raw potential or early hs grades and testing. Much more complex. Dig into it. Don’t assume based on superficials. Or what some other kids did accomplish there. Same for everyone. And, know what these schools look for. Repeat comment: it’s not all about stats. Nor what friends and family and some hs teachers think, in that hs context.</p>
<p>We are not dismissing top schools. We are questioning the lemmings rush, among may who never did the level of look-see we advocate.</p>
<p>ps1- Thurston Howell always added the III as if it conveyed some family SES related superiority. </p>
<p>ps2- for heaven’s sake, “Second tier” is usually considered outside the top 20-30 or more, depending. Do the numbers. That’s a whole lot of schools. 20 U’s and 20 LACs. And in the end, it depends on the major/dept. </p>
<p>
Newsflash: “Chinese” is not a race, and neither is “immigrant.” This is not about race at all. It is about culture, though. The difference I see between immigrant and non-immigrant prestige-seekers is that more of the immigrant families think that if you don’t make it into one of the very top schools, there is no point going to a lesser (but still expensive school)–you might as well go to the State U. Those more versed in the U.S. system–but who still are looking for prestigious schools–will “settle” for Duke, or Vanderbilt, or Emory. Vanderbilt was, at least a year or two ago, actively trying to recruit more Asian students. Why should it have to do so, when supposedly HYP et al. are turning away so many?</p>
<p>To put it another way, I think it is absurd to say that you’d pay 50K a year to go to Harvard, but not Tufts, or Rice, or WashU, or Dartmouth. (It might be absurd to pay that much for any of them, of course, depending on what you have to do to get the money.) I just don’t see this attitude much from non-immigrant families.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,</p>
<p>Third-tier schools may be fine, but you can get the same (or even better) quality education abroad, in Canada or EU, much cheaper. Economically, it doesn’t make sense to spend $30,000 per year, at some kind of University of Kalamazoo (sorry, Kalamazoo), when you can send your kid to Toronto, or Vienna, or Barcelona. </p>
<p>Snarl, nothing is so black or white: </p>
<p>Dale and Kruger: “There were notable exceptions for certain subgroups. For black and Hispanic students and for students who come from less-educated families (in terms of their parents’ education), the estimates of the return to college selectivity remain large, even in models that adjust for unobserved student characteristics.”</p>
<p>Also included in the exceptions, though not in the above quote, low income students. Also note it is not so easy or affordable to get into their comparison school, Penn State. Another study notes that if a college has a lower graduation rate, obviously then students are less likely to graduate and have lower earnings. The 4 and 6 year graduation rates count.</p>
<p>@ lookingforward “Could you answer a “Why Stanford?” question in the manner adcoms like? Could she?”</p>
<p>I don’t believe any HS kid can honestly answer this question. On the other hand, HS kids are well trained in answering these questions in a politically correct manner. Yes, my daughter can answer such questions. </p>
<p>Californiaa, Yes, the sort of kids Stanford wants can answer the question and do it very well. I’ve helped kids reflect on what S wants. I can name two posters who could do it even better, who have put the time and brain cells into digging into Stanford and some others. This is SO not about USNWR or some salary comparisons. You have to know what these various schools are really about, how they see themselves. They don’t pick a kid just for having stats and the level of confidence their friends and family have in them. And, I can tell you, from my experiences, if the kid cannot answer the Why Us?, it creates an impression that can be hard to counteract.</p>
<p>So, do your kids the favor of really knowing what the schools on their lists are about. Not job potential or international rep. And know what sorts of kids they look for- which is a lot more than, “well I and our hs think she’s great.”</p>
<p>Adding: and it’s a lot more than, ooh, all your research opps and look at me, I started a blog or I won this local award or my parents sent me to this enrichment program. Most 9th graders don’t know where to begin. </p>