Intriguing. Have you talked to some AOs who have expressed this concern? I have read some statements from AOs where they come across as very confident that their admissions process is a reliable one, so I’m sort of surprised to hear this.
1 Like
Another aspect of tiger parenting we see - science fairs are no longer competitions between kids but competitions between parents. You know exactly what the parent does for a living just by looking at what their kid did for science competition. 
And anybody willing to pay to have their name on science publication. That’s a tiger parent. No way admissions doesn’t know that a kid just taking calculus couldn’t have had an original thought on a physics paper. Yet, that kid is in. 
9 Likes
One year in middle school, my kids’ school made all the kids keep their science fair project at school and only work on them during class time. The difference between that year and previous years was huge! They were messy kids’ projects instead of parent projects, I loved it.
We live in an area with loads of engineers and science fair was always such a joke.
14 Likes
To me there are tiger parents and there are lawnmower parents. Some parents may have characteristics of both, but there are different criteria IMO.
Tiger parents push their kids relentlessly in every area that the parents feel the kid needs to excel. It could be academic (grades, tests, competitions), artistic (piano, violin, etc…) or athletic. Free unstructured time should be limited. They believe that this hard work, so long as their kid performs, should yield tangible outcomes that they value, especially when it comes to school acceptances. Tiger parents almost always hold their kids accountable, but if their kid performs but the outcome is not what they expect, they often will conclude something was not fair.
The lawnmower parent only cares about the outcome and how they can assure that outcome for their kid. This is the parent that does the science project, who complains to the teacher about a test or semester grade, who gets questionable testing accommodations or hires someone to take tests or write papers for their kid.
9 Likes
We are from a good Bay Area school district. I kind of regret not being tiger parent enough. Our district has only one high school and two middle schools. One middle school is in the fancy new multi million dollars house community. Our kids go to the other middle school in the old house community. Although S24 got straight As all way to high school, he could not compete with kids from fancy middle school. They were so motivative and well prepare. Their math path were one to two years ahead. To them, taking multiple AP classes and ace them in a quarter was the norm while Kids from my son’s middle school could barely pass regular classes. College results reflected the same, kids accepted by Ivy Leagues, top OOS school, top UC were disproportional from the fancy middle school. S24 worked so hard and was barely able to get accepted by UCD (off waitlist) and many kids from his middle schools ended up in community college. I really think we should have push him harder at young age. To prepare him better for high school, before it was too late.
2 Likes
In general, I don’t disagree with your thoughts on tiger parents v lawnmower parents, but you may want to edit that last sentence to be “gets unwarranted testing accommodations” as there are plenty of parents of kids who legit warrant accommodations.
3 Likes
Edited
1 Like
A messy kid without a tiger parent who is genuinely a tinkerer is now getting lost in the shuffle. My friend’s husband who teaches at a less than 5%admission school was wondering why the student body is so uninteresting. He thinks these kids must look so much better on paper. I want to say the paper really should be given to their parents. But the positive out of this is schools that weren’t as interesting before are now being filled with really amazing kids! So the options have widened in a sense.
8 Likes
I see the distinction in theory, but in practice what we see is almost all (because I am sure there are exceptions) tiger parents are lawnmower parents.
1 Like
I definitely was not intending to suggest any AO has confirmed being faked!
I was more referring to the combination of what you noted (AOs noting the issue), and then various anecdotes I have encountered of kids claiming to have successfully faked their way into top colleges (they might not use that term, that is more my assessment of what they are describing).
1 Like
That’s interesting because my experience has been like BKSquared. The “real” tiger parents around here are NOT doing the work for the kid. They are riding the kid to do exceptional work. They generally believe that their kids are capable of doing high level work unassisted - they just need to be pushed hard to do it. And then, yes, there are the parents who do the work for the kid. And those categories can overlap a bit, but I also have observed two different parenting strategies at work.
10 Likes
It’s both here. They are expecting work in school and grades, but they are curating their kids and absolutely doing science projects for them among other things. One doesn’t preclude the other.
2 Likes
Why do you think that the kid “is in”?
There are pay-to-play programs in which the student does something “researchy” with a PI, and then it’s submitted for publication in one of the journals for high school student research that are out there. That fills a line in the “activities” section of the Common Ap, and isn’t a “wow, we want this kid” sort of EC either.
However, no actual academic will let some high school junior put their name on a peer-reviewed paper because the parent paid them. If a high school student has their name on a paper in a real peer-reviewed journal (not those which are specifically for high school students), that student needs to have actually contributed to the research in a meaningful way.
Parent curating and overall involvement doesn’t accomplish as much as one would think, because most of the curated ECs aren’t all that interesting. One more kid who is a competent Violin or piano player. One more kid who is on the Lacrosse team. One more kid who did a lab internship where they helped. One more kid who participated in the science olympiad club.
You cannot curate your kid to win actual awards, you cannot curate a kid your kid to suddenly become super talented at music or sports, you cannot curate your kid to become passionate about something, and you cannot curate the Letter of Recommendation that they get.
Yeas, a kid can indeed fake many of these things, but you cannot fake something out of nothing.
Of course, you can counterfeit a resume, awards, etc, and you can also buy a great resume for your kid. However, the first is extremely risky, and the second requires the sort of money that would make a kid interesting for a college even without any accomplishments.
For most “top” public universities, the academics and LoRs are the most important things, and highly curated ECs are not really better than solid ECs.
Bottom line, while being a Tiger parent can increase the likelihood that you kid will end up in a low acceptance school (nothing like threatening your kid with emotional rejection to incentivize a child to work hard), parent overinvolvement to the point of curating a kid will not.
They have spent the last four years of their lives focussed on their grades and on a couple of ECs. Their ECs are generally ones that allow them to win awards, like Math competitions and science Olympiads. Some have engaged in music, but again, the type of music that wins awards.
They were also focused on getting As in high school, not on getting an education. You should blame the educations systems of 95% of the USA for the fact that the way to get As is generally ingestion and highly accurate regurgitation of knowledge. They are not used to asking questions to gain deeper knowledge, to go on tangents, to challenge the instructor and each other, etc.
Moreover, how interesting does he think a bunch of kids from wealthy families, mostly living in bubbles of wealth a privilege, will be, when they start college?
Your friend’s husband really has a weird notion of what his students should look like. Likely selective memory of his own colleges years.
In any case, “A messy kid without a tiger parent who is genuinely a tinkerer” was never a candidate for most large “elite” college. These colleges were never the right place for them. Maybe a LAC.
I was active in education for highly/profoundly gifted students, and most of these kids don’t end up in “elite” colleges.
3 Likes
I think I have some tiger parent qualities but I try to be judicious about voicing them or pushing them too hard on my kids
I live in one of those wealthy Bay Area suburbs (but not the peninsula, where I think the engineering crowd drives an emphasis on science, math, etc). The competition is real. Our area is very sports oriented and neither of my kids play a team sport. So I have tried to find ECs for them that will stand out and offer some of the same leadership, teamwork and commitment qualities. I try to observe what makes them excited and find things that will fit their interests. Tbh, sometimes I have had to encourage/push them to apply—especially S26, who would probably stay home indoors every moment if he could. But he often has a great time once the hurdle of starting is over.
I also try to encourage good study habits, keep up with their grades and suggest getting help from teachers or classmates if it seems like they aren’t getting a concept. I’ve proofread essays, too, but only after they have proofread themselves.
If I hadn’t been paying close attention, my S26 may not have gotten support for his ADHD as early as he did. I know this to be true because I wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult, and wish someone had recognized my struggles and tried to figure it out. It was a different time then, but my parents never paid attention to how things were going at school or made a connection to my average grades and my disorganization, forgetfulness, etc.
So, I like to think I’m paying close attention rather than controlling. Maybe there’s a fine line—if so, I’m trying to walk it!
6 Likes
My daughter’s name was on a peer-reviewed article published in a respected academic journal in a STEM field. She was waitlisted at Santa Clara University, so a publication does not guarantee success in admissions.
And that can take different forms. Having your name on a publication does not mean you were the principal investigator or leading original research or any such thing. My daughter’s contribution to the article she got her name on was more along the lines of sorting and scrubbing data, providing statistical analysis of data collected by the PI, verifying citations, proofing copy, assisting in revisions, etc. The academic equivalent of grunt work, but work that is absolutely necessary is preparing an article for publication. Her contribution was valued - not only did she get her name on the article, but the PI paid all her expenses to attend a national conference to help present the article and its findings. So such things are not necessarily artificially manufactured or fake or pay-to-play or whatever. They are also not a golden ticket to selective admissions. They are just one possible experience of many that a high school student may have.
@MWolf got this part exactly right.
But I also want to respond to @medea’s original post, to clarify how a kid could make a research contribution to physics in high school despite “just taking calculus”. My child won a national science award based upon one of his math research papers in 10th and 11th grade. There is no way I could have helped on it, because I couldn’t understand the math despite me having a master’s degree in engineering. In other words, the math taught in school was irrelevant.
Also, every finalist for this national prize was vetted by experts. For example, students submitting a physics project that year were drilled by a NASA engineer, who could very quickly discern just how much physics the student understood. This vetting is why the colleges trust them.
2 Likes
The PI sounds like a great person and somebody who is really invested in mentoring their lab people!
2 Likes
He was really great. And this was at a T5 university (if you saw where I live, you might be able to guess which one), so he certainly had his pick of both grad and undergrad students to work with. My daughter met him through one of her related ECs and he invited her onto his team and became a fantastic mentor for her. He also wrote her supplementary LOR for her college applications.
2 Likes
I just find it interesting how parenting styles have changed across the generations.
I am Gen X. The generation that basically raised itself. We grew up with a lot less parental involvement than is the case today. When I was 8 years old, it was not uncommon to ride our bikes 15 miles to the beach. Our parents had no idea where we were. And didn’t care.
But now, Gen X parents are WAY more into their kids lives. The pendulum has completely swung over to the other side. It is almost as if we KNEW that our upbringing was flawed and are trying to overcompensate with our own kids. Thus, the rise of the Tiger Parent.
But I think that the “parenting pendulum” is starting to swing back. In fact, one of the reasons that I joined this forum is that I know so many parents (usually Millenial parents who are a bit more hands off) who did not help their kids with the admissions process and their kids either didn’t get into schools or got into only extreme safety schools.
5 Likes
I think that’s part of it - our parents ignored us so we smother our kids (to speak in extremes, although most families likely fall on a continuum between those two extremes). I think that’s helicopter parenting, though.
Tiger parenting, as I understand, arose as a cultural thing - it was embedded in Asian culture. But as Asian immigrant families started to up their game, other families had to also up the ante keep up with them in order for their kids to remain competitive. Even still, there definitely remains an association between tiger parenting and Asian culture, even if it extends well beyond it now. That’s the nature of competition and competitive college admissions.