Hey everyone! I know there are a lot of students on here that probably have strict parents. Not saying that it’s necessarily bad or that parents on here are strict, but this is a general trend I’ve seen with other students applying to top colleges. Does anyone want to talk/rant about their experiences with parents(strict or non-strict)? I haven’t seen a thread about this yet, so that’s why I’m making it. Hopefully this makes someone’s day better!
I’ll go first.
Context: I have a small YouTube Channel(~100 or so subscribers) about me travelling that my parents think is the “magic bullet” that’s going to get me into all of the Ivies. (They also think that any school outside of the top 20s are “ok”, and even within the top 20s, “I should be able to easily get into JHU, UChicago which are decent schools”. I’m not sure where they got this mentality and I’ve been trying to alert them to their exceedingly high standards but to no avail.)
My parents are currently trying to get me to write, edit, and record a 2 minute video that incorporates travel, my struggles with Kawasaki Disease, and what my future plans are both in/past academia. When they first suggested it, I thought they were listing 3 potential video ideas and laughed, asking them which one I should make. This is not for the Brown Video essay(although I’m realizing now that I could potentially use it for that), but so that they can brag and show their friends. I don’t think they realize the amount of time and effort that goes into doing all of that for a video, or that fitting all of that content within 2 minutes is near impossible for a content creator of my (low) caliber. I don’t know how I’m going to do this. To make things worse, I went to the gym today(big mistake). My parents took my phone(which I need for recording). If the video doesn’t “fit their standards”, I’m going to stay in the room until I give them something that does. I have no clue what I’m going to do, but I’m trying. 
You’d need to define “strict” for me first. In my mind it’s sort of like the word “fair”.
Any parent that restricts their kids more than me is a strict parent and any parent that gives their kids more freedom than me is being irresponsible.
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I am a parent myself. Your parents don’t make sense at all. Why they want you to spend extra effort and time to make personal video to brag while you are busy with college applications and schoolwork during senior year? This is not about strict or not strict, just simply not making sense.
Good luck with college applications. My son got accepted to mid-tier UC last year, he is now having best time of his life. Not getting into T20 is not a big deal.
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I would say that there is no one definition of “strict”(despite what Oxford Dictionary says) so anything goes. You also don’t have to be strict in all aspects or at all times: A parent could be adamant about applying to T20 universities but also let their child go out with little resistance(I wish…). So honestly it depends on the person.
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