010. The Song Dynasty imperial exam destroyed my social life
Reflecting on Asian immigrant academic beliefs
East Asian immigrant parents’ view of success is based on the education systems they grew up with, and they think it’s the same system once they move to America, leading to unnecessary pressure and anxiety on their children.
Here’s my thought process:
The gaokao
In China, the gaokao is an annual high school test that students basically spend their entire lives preparing for.
Your gaokao score is basically the only thing that colleges look at when you apply.
Students will repeat their senior year just to retake the test if their scores are too low. There are reports of female students being prescribed birth control pills so they don’t risk getting their period during the test.1
Where did this system come from?
Ancient China had this thing called the imperial exam. This was a meritocratic test to become a bureaucrat in the Chinese government. It was one of the few opportunities for upward mobility and gave rise to a class of scholar-bureaucrats.
My hunch is that the gaokao has its roots here.2
Just like the imperial exam, the gaokao is a ticket to upward mobility and a better life. It’s a way out of poverty and a ladder to elevating family status and prestige.
It’s essentially the same system in Japan and Korea3, which is why you see anime and K-dramas where the kids are in cram school or trying to find their names on those big boards.
Moving to America
When Asian parents immigrate to America, they don't understand the difference in how the education system works here.
To immigrant parents, the SAT looks pretty similar to the gaokao. They assume it’s the same system they grew up in. Good SAT scores will lead to a good college will lead to all the above benefits.
My experience
For me, growing up in an Asian-dominated area in the Bay Area exacerbated this because many of the parents had the same mindset. Anytime I overheard conversations between parents, there was usually some name-dropping going on about which school their oldest child had gotten into.
High school culture revolved around getting into top colleges. Our parents moved across the globe and sacrificed so much in order for us to succeed. As early as seventh grade, we were dropped into a system where we were seeing upperclassmen doing things for the sake of getting into college. This was just the way that it was.
I essentially had no idea the differences between the colleges I was applying to were. I just applied to the “top” ones. I had no notion of what success meant beyond getting into college.
I lost out on plenty of formative memories because of this academic focus. I remember missing out on a field trip to San Francisco with my favorite classmates during senior year. Instead, I spent an afternoon, alone in an empty classroom, lying on the ground trying to get my stupid mousetrap car to work.
Even once I got into a good college, I still couldn’t ease up on my academics. I spent many weekends holed up in study spaces, working towards the legible goal (grades) and avoiding any possible upside from unexpected social interaction.
I studied abroad in Berlin, and I spent my finite nights in a foreign country working in the school basement, recording wavelengths of a circuit board or something.
Alumni had even given me the advice that “nobody cares about your GPA after graduating,” but their words bounced off me. It was too foreign from my worldview to understand.
Takeaways
It’s not wrong that good SAT scores and getting into college can lead to positive results, but the degree to which it determines success in America is tenuous, depending on where your family started off economically. I think for many of the families who were able to afford and thrive in the Bay Area, it kinda didn’t matter.
the effect on earnings of the average SAT score of the school that the student attended is indistinguishable from zero.4
In other words, if Mike and Drew have the same SAT scores and apply to the same colleges, but Mike gets into Harvard and Drew doesn’t, they can still expect to earn the same income throughout their careers…
This finding suggests that the talents and ambitions of individual students are worth more than the resources and renown of elite schools.5
I’ve seen more headlines and conversations questioning the value of higher education these days. It seems that the burden of college debt is honestly canceling out a lot of the benefits for folks in my generation. And, we’re seeing more and more ways to succeed without having to get into the “right” school.
With the rise of remote learning and the bugaboo of AI looming over the market, I hope that the current crop of immigrant parents isn’t still grasping onto their mental model of the gaokao as the panacea to their children’s lives.
Ah, I relate so much to this essay. It's hard to realize that whatever our parents think is the best way to survive is already outdated, however well-intentioned. I try to remind myself that the ancestral goal is one towards happiness.