<p>Where on the common app do I indicate the level of education of my parents - neither earned a degree but they both did attend some college. If they didn't receive a degree, am I a first generation college student?</p>
<p>The Common App has a section for biographical and family information. You list your parents’ education, including any higher education, there.</p>
<p>There is no “first generation” box to check, or anything like that. It’s not really your determination to make, whether you’re “first generation” or not. Colleges will receive the information you provide about your parents’ education, and each college decide what, if anything, it wants to make of it.</p>
<p>You can pick the option “some college” on the biography section of the Common App. This is most likely considered first generation, seeing as they don’t currently hold a bachelor’s degree. Some schools that don’t use the common app, however, may have a single option to indicate whether or not you are a first generation student.</p>
<p>It depends on the school, some schools will consider you first gen if your parents went but did not receive a degree, some will not.</p>
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<p>pch340, I’m not trying to challenge you, or pick a fight; I’m genuinely curious. Do you have some basis for saying this, or are you just speculating? If I were making the interpretation, I would say that “first generation” means “first generation on either side of the family to attend college,” not to complete it.</p>
<p>Of course, I don’t actually make this determination. I’m just some guy whose only real qualification is an Internet connection.</p>
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<p>I guess that’s possible. My daughter just completed a mix of Common App and colleges’ proprietary applications. The proprietary applications that she completed asked the question the same way the Common App did: list Parent 1’s college (if any), degree received (if any), year; list Parent 1’s graduate school #1 (if any), degree received (if any), date; etc. But nowhere did she encounter an option for the applicant to identify himself or herself as “first generation.”</p>
<p>This makes sense, if you think about it. Many colleges recalculate applicants’ GPAs because they don’t want high schools to calculate them in a way that doesn’t conform to the college’s own standards. Why, then, would a college let advantage-seeking applicants stretch the definition of “first generation” to airy thinness, instead of just collecting the information and interpreting it according to their own standard?</p>
<p>Most of the college apps I’ve seen, the lowest option is “some high school”, I feel like I’m lying because my mom never went past like, second grade. O_O And my stepdad… who cares, probably to sixth grade. <em>phizzle</em> I guess what should also be taken into consideration is that I’m talking about school in Asia.</p>
<p>I’m a first gen student, too.</p>
<p>pch340, I’m not trying to challenge you, or pick a fight; I’m genuinely curious. Do you have some basis for saying this, or are you just speculating? If I were making the interpretation, I would say that “first generation” means “first generation on either side of the family to attend college,” not to complete it.</p>
<p>Wow…ok?? Yes, I do have basis for this question. I am a first generation student, so I have asked it at a lot of information sessions, and more specifically I have asked Shawn Abbot, assistant vice president of undergrad. admissions at NYU. He told me that a lot institutions will consider “some college” as a first generation student.
Other schools strictly interpret it as an “undergraduate whose parents never enrolled in post secondary education.” </p>
<p>Granted, nothing is concrete. You select the option which best describes your parents’ education, and the college decides whether or not you should be deemed as a first generation student. The truth is, it’s all in context. Depending on the rest of your application, schools will put your parents’ education into perspective. Sometimes First-Gen counts for nothing if you are from one of the richest suburban towns in California. Other times, it will mean everything if the student is from a poor, urban neighborhood. </p>
<p>Also, not to challenge you, but what does your daughter’s application experience have to do with anything? She applied to what, a maximum of 10 schools? This is no way represents how some or most colleges review first generation students. For example, Iona and York’s applications have a specific option for first generation student…</p>
<p>Anyway…the general consensus to this question, like many other questions regarding college admissions, is some schools do some do not…</p>
<p>Interesting. Thank you.</p>