Commentary: How the admissions scandal helped me appreciate my parents
No child's first choice of a Christmas present would be "1001 SAT Words" and underwear. But that's what I got the year I was 10. My parents came to the U.S. as Korean War refugees, and the gifts represented what they considered most important: education and primary needs.
As a child, I broke curves on tests and studied instead of going out with friends. I had an index card posted over my typewriter, HARVARD '86!!! because that's what my two older brothers had done. I remember PTA meetings in which teachers pleaded with my parents to let me just relax and play. But that wasn't going to happen.
As a teen
