My mom went to a community college in Korea but never graduated and my dad went to a state school in California but never graduated as well. In other words, neither of my parents have received a bachelors degree. Am I first gen or not? Here are the colleges that I’m applying to since I know that schools are different when it comes to first gen:
Stanford
Columbia
Cornell
Brown
Notre Dame
Dartmouth
UPenn
WashU
Northwestern
UMich
UVA
UNC
UCB, UCLA, UCSD, and other UC’s
USC
NYU
There’s no “first gen” box to check off. The common app asks for your parents’ level of education. That’s it. For your parents, it’ll be “some college”. The colleges will/won’t use that accordingly. Stop worrying about this label.
Some places define it as parents who were never enrolled in higher education. Others define it as parents never completed a degree after high school. Still others say that it’s parents who never completed a 4 year bachelors degree. Simply do as T26E4 suggested and let them figure it out according to their own policies.