I’m sorry if the wording of my post is misleading. I stand on my statement, I think UA should be her safety, a last resort to fall back on if she has no other options.
UA is indeed her safety. It’s an automatic scholarship. How can it not be a safety if one has the stats? However, it is not at all “not good enough for her”. I just think that it’s not the right fit, which makes it a last resort. My stats is not far behind, and I choose to go to UA. Isn’t that a perfect indication that UA is “good enough”, at least for me?
I’d also want to clarify something regarding “more prestigious”. Neither of us is Ivy-material. When I refer to “more prestigious”, what I really meant was “higher ranked”. To our Asian parents, ranking means everything. This notion may derive from our education system where school name is a big deal and university selection has nothing to do with any other variables. Even I had a hard time convincing my parents to let me accept the scholarship offer from UA. So when my girlfriend received a higher score, her parents wanted her to apply to other higher ranked schools like Dickinson, Wake Forest, etc. I think it’s understandable.
“The “problem” I have here is that the parents of OP’s GF (and maybe even OP) seem to think the UA honor program is still not good enough for their daughter (just because she now has good scores.)”
This is completely true. The reason is that her parents are not familiar with the US education. To them, better ranked equals better salary and post-graduate opportunities. Also, I would add that university admission in our country is entirely based on an entrance examination. There is nobody’s fault. But it is a real problem.
Based on what I know, mom2ck’s kids (yes, as far as I know, she had 2 kids there) are very successful. I don’t make any comparison here (but by the way, we’re not as good), and I also do not think that anyone would look down on their UA’s education.