Asian Parents Frenzy

jonri
Sat, 08 Apr 2017 01:12:03 +0000

My offspring’s high school alma mater had some real problems with Asian parents, particularly Korean parents. (For example, the police were searching for one Korean-American student who was “missing.” The school couldn’t understand because he was going to all his classes. It turned out that he had found a way to stay in the basement of the building overnight and had done this for 3 days. Why? He had gotten a bad report card and was terrified of going home and facing his parents. His dad used corporal punishment–I am NOT claiming that’s typical, but his dad did—and he was genuinely terrified of going home.)

So, some more “Americanized” Korean parents formed a Korean-American Parent Association. The idea was to share information with other Korean parents. The information DID include things like you need strong ECs to get into top American colleges. It included information about financial aid and the need to fill out FAFSA. (Some parents didn’t understand that you HAD to do this to get financial aid.Others simply found it too daunting. ) It also introduced parents to the reality that there is no magic “to be done” list that guarantees admission into HYPSMC. They had monthly meetings. Some speakers included young Korean grads of the high school who had gone to SUNYs or CUNYs and then on to top med schools and law schools.

It helped. I don’t mean that all pressure on the kids stopped; it didn’t. However, parents had a much better idea of how the process worked and also understood that their kids weren’t closed out of top grad and professional programs if they went to less highly ranked undergrad colleges.

So, @guamboy maybe you could look into trying to organize something like this.