Re: post #177.
Santa Clara University is indeed the one I thought it is. It is essentially next to a CalTrain Station. Not far from the airport. I actually heard there is a bus that goes between the airport and that CalTrain Station too. It is very conveniently located!
Looks like a few posters are using this thread to indulge in some negative generalizations about “your community”, “your country”, “your society/culture/caste”, “you Indians”, “this is America, not India!”, “anyone can become anyone here but not in your country” type of nonsense. Last I heard the leader of a country used to sell tea as a kid, and had a woman as leader decades ago. 
Mudd is an outlier here (as is Caltech). Most other “top” universities (public or private) cover material in most subjects at a similar pace (significantly slower than Mudd or Caltech in math), although there can be some variation by subject. At significantly lower levels of selectivity, the courses may be slower paced, although the difference is less dramatic than Mudd or Caltech versus others.
Your son is an accomplished and thoughtful student who is clear headed about his desires and pragmatic about how he gets there. The issue here is not him, it your quest for recognition through him that is the problem. You need to treat him as an adult, you need to stop defining yourself through his achievement and, you need to stop equating Ivy leagues with social status. He will probably learn just as much academically and be more able to deal with the broad spectrum of people in the workforce coming out of a “lesser” school. The most dynamic leaders I have met have come from state schools not from the ivies! IQ is often trumped by EQ and there is no guarantee of the latter if you put an academic lens to,everything.
OP here.
Wow! What a discussion! Thank you all for weighing in with your insights. They are all appreciated.
In our family, we’ve been reviewing the responses and the points raised in each post. There have been a large number of helpful posts and we are very thankful to everyone who took the time to respond.
Some points we’ve learned:
Thanks again, everyone, for your help and insight.
Harvard’s senior survey mentions that ~30% are starting work in finance or consulting, but only ~6% plan to go into finance or consulting as a career… an extremely small portion of the overall class. I expect it’s more students are doing finance/consulting for now until something better comes along, as described in the article at http://www.vox.com/2014/5/15/5720596/how-wall-street-recruits-so-many-insecure-ivy-league-grads , which states
Nowadays tech and entrepreneurship is much bigger than it was in the past. Many grads who are looking for a higher income profession consider a tech job at Google/Apple/Facebook/…Silicon Valley company/… to be more desirable than a finance job in Wall Street, including both CS and engineering. CS has become the most popular major at Stanford in recent years, by a large margin. An intro to CS/programming class has become Stanford’s most popular class of all time, with an average of ~2000 enrolled students per academic year…
You hinted at large debt in your other posts. Be sure that your contribution to his education does not compromise your retirement, or your contribution to your daughter’s education. Do some financial planning to figure out what you can contribute to each of your kids’ educations while having enough for your own retirement. Avoid putting yourself in a position of having to depend on your son’s support in your retirement. If he goes to medical or law school, paying off the debt from that will keep him from having much extra money to help support you in your retirement.
Regarding the application list, it is best to start the list with an affordable safety that he likes. Since his interests seem to be in that direction anyway, that may not be as hard as for a student who would only be happy at a super-selective school, but he should be careful of schools that look at “level of applicant’s interest” and may otherwise not be as safe as their frosh academic stats may imply.
Can that level of enrollment continue? That is larger than Stanford’s frosh class.
The enrollment has increased substantially in each year between 2009 and 2014, so I do not think it is just a temporary effect from a combination of multiple years taking it at one time. Note that a lot of grad students take the class, as well as undergrads. They may also be including things like employees at tech jobs taking the class long distance via SCPD.
Good job, because this is important. It may be that your son is not “afraid” of Harvard, but rather that he doesn’t like the idea of another four years in an intensely competitive environment. In other words, he may sense that it’s not a good fit.
You also speak of his applying to a range of colleges, which is a good idea for every student. His list should include – first and foremost – a safety or two. This would be a school where he is virtually assured of admission, which is affordable without any financial aid and without taking on an unreasonable amount of debt, and where he would be happy. Since you’re in California, he has access to a number of world-class public universities, so that shouldn’t be difficult.
Second, exercise your parental prerogative and have him apply at one (only one) of YOUR dream schools. But only do this if you could bear him turning it down, in case he’s admitted but doesn’t want to attend. If you couldn’t bear him saying No to Harvard, don’t make him apply to Harvard.
Third, he should turn his attention to the hundreds of colleges which you’ve never heard of where he can get a first-class education. Yes, every bit as good as Harvard. Don’t confuse fame with quality.
And this should make you feel better: One needn’t go to Harvard to get into grad school. In fact, depending on what he wants to study, HYPSM may be a rather poor choice. Take a look at this list of PhD feeder schools, and ponder the magic of the Midwestern LACs. While they are not well known to most people, they are very well known – and very well regarded – by graduate schools:
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/
I am glad someone noticed.
There are a few posters here who have become cyber bullies.
I heard the same from several young men or women, including DS when he was in his “gap” year after college - At that time, he had passed 4 intense high school years and 4 intense undergraduate years already when he made the similar remark. Thus he intentionally chose a “no grade” school (well, only no grade for the first two years) after college.
Re: cyber bullies.
I hope I did not accidentally became one in the past when I happened to be in a bad mode.
If I have ever done that, I apologize it here.
This will be one of our goals in the future. However, so little time for us to catch up on our retirement preparation - why did we choose to have our child so late?!
For some immigrant communities, prestige is valuable and important and worth paying for, that is a valid point of view.
For many Americans, the cheapest and easiest way into medical school is the ultimate goal, that is a valid point of view as well.
HYP attendance will provide lifelong benefits to most of its alumni. Of course you can succeed without it. But HYP is MORE important for recent (and ambitious) immigrants - it can jump start their access to people who matter a lot in society. Just because HYP wouldn’t help your kids achieve what they want, doesn’t mean that Indian parents are wrong to see it as very worthwhile for their kids.
Anecdotal data points only:
I have seen a Caucasian student who was admitted to one of HYPS and chose not to attend (attended a flagship public school instead) on the ground that it was too expensive for his family (both of his parents were lawyers but do not know if they were successful ones or not.)
But I have never ever seen a student (who was born here or at least grew up here since very young) from a new immigrant family who was admitted to one of these colleges and chose not to attend.
However, I am still not sure whether this following (posted above) is true or not:
“Going to one of these schools can jump start their access to people who matter a lot in society.”
I actually told my child just the opposite:
You should choose a career path such that you do not need to rely so much on the connection to people who may help you. This is because, unlike some of your peer students who have connections, you have none. Attending the same school does not automatically mean that you will have the same connections as some of your peer students in your class will do.
I do not know whether I have misled my S or not by saying this.
@mcat2 I guess it depends on what connections you are talking about. The peers themselves could be the connections, as could be the faculty. However, there could be connected people everywhere…especially in the state flagships. But preparing your child to build their own network and not rely on others could never be bad advice.
As you are probably aware, there is really no merit available from the Ivies. And most merit is offered by colleges – outside merit is usually small and for only one year, or else highly competitive. If you are looking for merit, his search changes quite a bit.
But with stats like he must have, he might get a lot of merit aid to some schools that are “almost as good”…something to consider.
I don’t know if OP is still reading this thread, and I didn’t read most of the replies but I had one comment. Regarding the point that the son made for not wanting to go Ivy, that he would be with so many smart people he would not get the top grades. That is not necessarily the case, at least with my son’s experience at Yale. There is not a bell curve at Yale (and I think at Harvard either), a teacher will give out 20 A’s to a class of 20 if the students do A level work. Many of the professors feel that if these kids are smart enough to get into Yale in the first place, they’re probably going to do top rate work, why punish their efforts by requiring an artificial bell curve of some kind? Anyway, there are a lot of articles about grade inflation in the Ivies, check them out, and show your son.
Well, there are some terribly obnoxious and offensive replies to your very valid post. Your son sounds academically talented, ambitious and strategic. You, his parents, are willing to make sacrifices for his education. He does sound mature but here are a few things he should consider. First, being exposed to other highly talented students is usually a good thing: you learn a lot from your fellow students, you make new connections. Second, top thinkers and faculty are attracted to outstanding universities and colleges: Princeton, Chicago, Yale, Columbia faculty have more than their share of Nobel hardware stuffed in their offices. Next, going to college is more than a stepping stone for graduate and professional school and your son needs to be reminded of this. Now, regarding your idea of heaven: expand it a bit. Familiarize yourself (if you haven’t) with some of the outstanding LACs known for their teaching: Williams and Swarthmore are always nationally recognized, as well as Reed and Haverford. At the same time, it’s more than fair to ask your son to do the same: expand his horizons and take a few risks. Good luck. You are obviously very proud of him and want the best for him. I understand immigrant family values and the appeal of an Ivy. Good luck.
You sound like great parents of a very smart son. I’m so impressed that you are willing to change the idea of everything you know about education to consider what is right for your son. It doesn’t feel like he is fearful, but a realist. My advise is to apply to two Ivies, and 2 top notch others, and two above average schools and then go from there. Best of luck to you.