Is tiger parenting the norm among upper middle class parents?

Parents Forum
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I think curating a resume in college or after is a very different matter. It typically hews closer to parents’ experience in the workplace and is in no way discouraging a “childhood”.

I was much more involved with my kids’ efforts to curate their resume during college as they looked towards potential grad school and future jobs. That was particularly the case with S18 where applying for graduate scholarships (Truman, Marshall etc) required a couple of years preparation and his college (unlike some others) provided essentially no guidance in the process until it was far too late to start building a competitive resume. And I still provide career advice now they’ve graduated, especially encouraging them to think about what they might want in 5, 10 or 20 years time.

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Yes - and second kid may take more AP if she wants, but only if it’s of interest to her and she can maintain a good healthy balance of all the things. I do think there is pressure that keeps creeping down the line of “good luck getting to do anything ‘good’ as an adult unless you are grinding starting at age 14” which I don’t subscribe to.

I always want them to take a study hall, for instance, which is not the norm for many. And to take electives that interest them, not because it looks good on an application.

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As a Californian, this puzzles me, too. I love our university systems - both UC and CSU - and I did grad school at UCB and my daughter is a rising sophomore there as well, so obviously I hold Cal in very high regard. But…No way is it worth the OOS tuition price tag. It just isn’t. At all. You would get so much more bang for your buck at so many other schools. And yet, just about every high achieving kid in the country has either UCB or UCLA or both on their college list…

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But you’d also get so much less bang for your buck at so many other schools. Plenty of OOS families are full pay at USC, for many of the same reasons that UCLA appeals (it’s LA!). I don’t see why it would be an obvious decision to choose USC over UCLA (and pay $20K more per year) as a full pay OOS family.

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Agree that it’s an “LA or bust” thing.

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Mid-west regular public high school – very little tiger parents here. In fact, very few parents want their kids to leave the local area. I see the reverse – kids who really WANT to leave, expand their wings -who are doing very well in school (not Ivy well but competitive beyond decent state school) -whose parents are offering little to no support.
I’ve started becoming their ‘unofficial’ college advisor. As one kid put it, “Her mom would rather buy fancy clothes” than put money toward a college fund. This kid wants to go to live in the big city. Her parents want her to go to CC. We did research and she exceeds the average profile (by a lot) for a few good Chicago schools. I’m encouraging her to apply for those hope for merit money. (She can live for free in the area) --so she just needs to get that tuition in shooting range and hope to negotiate the rest with her parents. Her backup plan is the state college - Honors college --and a dorm scholarship/RA-ship (She figures if it cost no more than CC, she can swing it --even if she has to take out a small loan.)
I feel like that’s as ‘anti-tiger mom’ as possible.
Another kid? Her parents had to be TALKED into letting her kid do research with local university.
We had one kid go to an Ivy, a few go to SLAC --but predominantly the expectation is state school.

I think my kid aiming for Brandeis-Holyoke-McCalester level schools is an oddity.

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87

I can’t say that I know a whole lot about USC, but private universities often have things such as better chance of registering for the classes you want, smaller class sizes, better housing guarantees, and such things which - in my opinion - does give more bang for your buck. Of the three schools mentioned then - USC, UCLA, and UCB - I really only have great familiarity with UCB and registering for classes can be a nightmare if you don’t have registration priority, many intro classes are well over 100 students or 500 hundred students (my daughter had a class that was capped at 1000 students, so only some could attend in person, others had to watch online), and of course, no housing available for students after their first year (which puts you in the incredibly overpriced and sometimes exploitive Bay Area housing market). And OOS people are willing to pay close to $80K/year for that? I mean, it’s their money, they can obviously do what they want with it, but to me that is not a good value.

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I don’t think I’m a tiger mom – my kid has a goal --and I’m trying to help her have her best shot at it. Her teachers are providing the same kind of support -so it’s a team effort.

My other kid wanted the state school, so we did everything to make sure that’s the best experience possible for him. (Sign up early for dorms -etc.)

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Yes, but I think there’s a more direct comparison between USC and UCLA (including on academic credentials), and many of the disadvantages you cite for UCB are less problematic at UCLA (which has plenty of housing available, albeit in unpleasantly small triples, and class registration and size was never that bad). The real difference in my mind between UCLA and a private school like USC is whether you are prepared to be self-sufficient vs expecting more hand-holding.

Plenty of S18’s friends at UCLA were from OOS and often their decision was based on a) location and b) it being $20K cheaper than their full pay private admissions (think Boston College or similar, I don’t think any of them got into Ivies).

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Yes, there is a very odd sense of artificial scarcity behind a lot of this.

Like, I was mentioned above something like 15% of US households are typically classified as upper middle class by academics, so that is already over 19 million households. And of course many, many more US families are doing well, working reasonable hours in jobs they find reasonably fulfilling, financially comfortable with some time and money for fun stuff, raising kids who are in good schools, all the outcomes known broadly as the American Dream. So that is many millions more households.

But according to these folks, if you don’t get one of like maybe 40000 college slots, you are doomed to a life of misery.

It is so mathematically ridiculous it is kinda hard to take seriously, and in fact I think it is often really just a bad rationalization for parental peer pressure and status seeking. You want the pride you assume will come from a kid being admitted to such a college, but you are making them miserable in pursuit of that goal, and possibly seriously compromising their mental health. Not a good look for you, but if you assert that is the only way to save them from a full life of misery, you can sound like less of a monster to yourself.

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UCLA I got back in the era where it was both a lot easier to get admitted OOS, and not so expense OOS. Like, way back in prehistoric times when I was applying, there were some pretty well-qualified upper middle class kids in my midwest public HS applying to UCLA because it had a reputation as a fun place to go to college, and was at least a bit more reputable than like Arizona State (not that none of them went to Arizona State!).

I think that then puts UCLA into that broad category of colleges that used to be Targets or even Likelies for a lot of kids, and now are Reaches, and not everyone can really wrap their heads around that change. Even so, we get a kid going to UCLA from our feederish HS in the East periodically–more to Cal these days, but UCLA is sometimes still on the list.

Yeah, USC in particular is a bit of an odd duck in that it is kinda large for a private and maybe less distinct from a UCLA than most privates.

But I was more talking about, say, a UC Davis. To be very clear, I think UC Davis is an excellent public university and a great option at in-state tuition rates. But the OOS cost for UC Davis is up to like $80K. And Davis is a nice college town, but there are nice college towns all over.

Now conversely, I think some people underrate how competitive UC Davis is academically, just because it is not Cal or maybe UCLA. Like, personally, I see it as an academic peer of, say, Wisconsin, Illinois, or Washington. And that is not because I have a low opinion of Wisconsin, Illinois, or Washington, it is because I have a high opinion of Davis.

But colleges like that are around $20K less per year than Davis, give or take. And that is the part I have a hard time wrapping my head around, why people not from California would be targeting colleges like that given the big cost difference.

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To be fair, a lot of OOS students have no idea how little financial aid is available to OOS students at California schools. My kid, for one, didn’t appreciate that until after the application was submitted.

For people who come from typical large public school systems, where no one uses college counselors, there is no Naviance, there is very little tiger parenting, and almost zero guidance from over-burdened school counselors, that kind of thing isn’t well known.

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This is very true and, while I hate to be a dream killer here on CC, I am glad we can inform students of this BEFORE they invest the time in the UC app (which can be quite time consuming and a total waste if you can’t afford the OOS costs).

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Agree, but there’s room to pity us poor confused parents too.

We’re sent such mixed messages. On one hand, we’re told that there are innumerable good options, that the superiority of a handful of schools is a myth, etc.

But on the other, the media directed at our class—the Professional-Managerial Class—like the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc. obsessively focus on Ivy+.

When we complain that these schools enroll only a tiny percentage of students, and ask why so much focus is directed on them, we’re told by researchers like Chetty et al., that the obsession is justified, that these schools are where the mighty and eminent in our society—Supreme Court justices, presidents, CEOs—come from.

Add to that the period of transition we’re in… Sentences that would have been unutterable 20 years ago, like “Whoa, you got into Northeastern, way to go!” are now common. I remember a college friend reporting that his father (a paleo- saber-toothed tiger) declaimed to him, “No son of mine is going to Boston University!” BU, NYU, etc. used to be easy pickings. Now “prestige” itself is in flux.

And pity too the way the college outcome has become such an absurd referendum on our parenting, from even before birth. Did we choose the right neighborhood/town to buy a house in? Could we have afforded better? Did we read enough to the little tyke? Too much? Did we exert too much pressure? Too little? Did we warp their priorities with subtle pressure we weren’t even aware of?

Not denying that bad parenting, or bad priorities, exist. But it’s a wilderness.

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95

My theory on why college admissions is so competitive is the increase in highly educated Asian immigrants. The US Asian population doubled from 2000-2019 and the kids are some of the best students in the country.

Our town is 82% white, 13% Asian and 5% other. And yet 9 of the top 10 students from class of '24 were Asian. “Tiger” parenting is also an Asian concept. The majority of Chance Me threads hoping to apply to T20 schools are from Asian students/parents.

If Pew research is correct that this population trend will continue, then college applications will be even more competitive in the next 20 years.

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As a European and UK parent, this topic is fascinating in terms of an insight into what the higher education parenting approach is across the pond. Lemme give you a little look into similarities/differences into the English system.
In the UK, the upper middle class education arm race is similar, but shifted much earlier- the helicopter/tiger parenting is in action from the early years, when children reach an age to apply to those top 100 fee paying schools, either day or boarding (from Eton/Westminster downwards). And it’s intense.
Kids mostly take the 11+ exam (or, a little less commonly, the even earlier 7+ one) when they are in grade 6 (3). It consists of school-mandated exams (sort of like IQ tests, with verbal and non-verbal reasoning, English, Math etc). Every school has its own one, though they are broadly similar. Then the kids have to attend interviews with teachers/staff.
Yes, when they are 6 or 10 years old.
Then you get a denial or admission letter- and get to pay a minimum of 25-30k a year for the privilege of attending (more for boarders).
Kids, who often already attend pre-prep schools as they are known here, start practicing their exams months in advance, even years before, very often with private tutors (though of course in England no one talks about it). So nowadays the school arms race has a very, very early start- the difference is that it’s purely on the academic side. ECs don’t really count, like for University. You can get into good private schools later, at 13+ (very rare, almost disappearing), or 16+, but that’s very much a lottery, often for particularly academic kids. So the tiger and not-so-tiger parents have to be involved from a very early age, because how else will you get a six or ten year old to practice IQ/aptitude tests?
Then everything changes. Once a kid is in, the Private School takes over- all the way into the University application process. They prepare the kids academically, take care of UCAS (UK common app system) and the parents sit back. Sports are mostly played within the school and ECs don’t count for anything in the UK College process, so the tiger parenting is only needed when grades fall below standard, more as prodding/occasional tutoring if needed. (The schools are very proactive in getting kids to academical perform- their ranking is purely based on kids’ exam results). The kids also mostly provide their own competition as the average academic level is high, the workload intense and most students don’t like falling behind.
Top 100 private school grades are exceptionally high in both GCSE (at 16) and A-Levels (at 18), so no need for parents to get overly involved unless a kid is seriously struggling. A Russel group University (though definitely not Oxbridge anymore) place is almost guaranteed for anyone who doesn’t mess up. But the Private schools take care of 90% of the process. Which I guess is what you pay extortionate fees for.
So in the UK, for the upper middle class, tiger/helicopter parenting is also quite common, it just happens a lot earlier and for a shorter period of time given the quirks of the Private education system, the lack of need for ECs and the complete academic reliance on final exams as opposed to a continuous GPA.
Different strokes, still a large amount of pressurised kids and stressed parents… :wink:

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97

So I believe that gap has closed a bit since then, but I would also agree BC is in that category along with USC where full pay is a bit of a dubious proposition if you are at all cost sensitive.

Like if I was advising someone who would be competitive for BC but full pay on how to save a lot on college, I would not necessarily leap to thinking UCs OOS. In my circles, kids like that are going to be looking at, say, William & Mary, which is considerably less expensive not only than BC, but also the UCs. Maybe some Big Tens, like Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio State, and Minnesota, Purdue and Penn State for engineers, Indiana for business kids, etc. Often discussed here, Pitt is a popular option. And so on.

Of course if you are in-state anywhere with a college like that, even better. And if you need even lower costs, you can start hunting merit, including at privates in fact which under the right circumstances can come in under OOS options.

And of course if you REALLY want the Boston experience and can afford it comfortably, BC full pay is maybe still an option. But I do struggle with recommending it to cost-sensitive families when there are so many OOS options like the above that I consider academically comparable.

But I also still struggle with the UCs OOS, at least at what they cost today.

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On TikTok I have been getting (or was a few weeks ago) all of the college announcement videos and it got to be “oh, all the girls in plaid skirts? Let’s see how many are going to the top schools…” and I loved when a random public school group would show up and be highlighting state schools, CC, regional privates. etc. It certainly seems like a strong connection of money = access, which is a whole 'nother discussion.
And for all the kids who are excited about being The One Who Got In - once they go to orientation, it will be All Kids Who Got In, which is a different scenario. I also think there’s a different cachet for “applying and got in” to “actually going” and some of the apps are just brass-ring chasing for clout. (whether it’s parental or student clout, as I think that gets blurry in some families.)

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I’m very sympathetic to all the noise from popular media, but I also think the Chetty study is really a great example of artificial scarcity.

The study didn’t dwell on this, but in truth it found that for the vast majority of upper middle class attendees, there was no statistically significant difference in outcomes whether they chose an Ivy+ or another selective private or flagship public. They and others have found maybe a bit more difference with FGLIs who attend Ivy+, but that is largely explained by FGLIs often not having the same sort of second-best alternatives if they do not attend an Ivy+.

So to find a difference for upper middle class kids, they had to look in the far tails of outcomes–unusual wealth for even Ivy grads, Supreme Court Justices, and so on. And yes, they found a difference there, but it was not like attendees of other colleges were locked out from such tail outcomes, they just had somewhat lower frequencies. And then again for the vast majority of attendees, it didn’t matter, because they didn’t end up with a tail outcome, just a normal upper middle class outcome. So, like, most Ivy+ college graduates who go to law school do not in fact become Supreme Court Justices, they just become normally successful lawyers.

OK, so I have lost count, but this is yet another litmus test sort of situation. If you hear that all these colleges are pretty much equally good for taking the kids of upper middle class parents and helping them turn into upper middle class adults again, and you breathe a sigh of relief, you are probably not a tiger parent.

If you hear that attending an Ivy+ may somewhat improve your upper middle class kid’s chances of ending up with a true upper class outcome, improving those chances from very low to still very low but slightly less low, and you think that is a good enough reason to make them miserable in high school in pursuit of such an outcome . . . then you just might be a tiger parent.

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And even there I don’t know if you can really disentangle it from initial potential. I suspect there’s still an element of self-selection that “far tail” ability is more likely to end up at Ivies, which studies of all admits find hard to capture.

But if you think about some of the initial career options for those in the “far tail” of potential, I’d argue that nowadays it may be easier to win a Rhodes scholarship or similar coming from a selective cohort in a state flagship than from an Ivy. And of course top grad school admissions include a large number of admits from non-Ivies.

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