“About 200 colleges partner with the nonprofit I’m First, an initiative of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Student Opportunity, to help guide students before they even apply. Its website highlights programs and services that can help them be successful once they arrive on campus.”
This is a great program. They should have counselors in high schools that specialize in this. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard 1st generation students parents tell them to apply to the school they want they will find a way to pay for it. It’s not very realistic and the kids alway end up screwed in the end.
Great idea of course, I doubt anyone will think otherwise. But I’d say that for most students, it’s already too late. Trying to give people a “boot camp” for college presumes that they have a solid foundation from their early years of education. The right time to help kids is in their earlier years, in elementary school or middle school, where they can be influenced into becoming good students and expect that they will pursue the college route. There is no simple solution to years of poor education or poor education about the value of education.
on college confidential many people think everyone has a last name of vanderbilt carnegie or mellon. most people are not the 5th generation to attend an elitist school like yale or harvard. for many or most applicants maybe one parent went to college at a local state school or a community college and the other parent graduated only high school. it is hard for the majority of people heading of to college even if their parents did attend college themselves.what schools need to do is have a better support network looking out for mental health issues, substance abuse etc… at my college you really had no where to turn for help for pretty much anything.so whether your parents are jet setters who fly to the hamptons or aspen for the weekend or you grew up in foster care you are on your own. (and most people that ran into issues even ones with well to do parents only got them involved after the fact)
A lot of good colleges take their academic support responsibilities very seriously. Many will ID kids early and reach out proactively. Works best at schools with high 4 and 6 year grad rates.
There are also lots of programs out there that do ID kids by 9th. Some have national names, some are established local mentoring by people who care.
I’m a first-gen student, & I’ve never heard of I’m First. I’m a senior, but two of my top choices are involved, so I’m making an account now!
I think a huge issue for first-generation students is that those of us who live in low-income areas have awful guidance counselors. The one thing my GC has ever done for me was print a list of expensive privates in our area. He thinks Sallie Mae loans solve everything. He never taught me about affordability, scholarships, let alone first-gen services…
Another thanks to CC, to helping me find these things!
How do you define 1st generation? You may have a foreign PhD, but if you apply for a job in the US, your degree is not recognized. So is a child of a holder of a non-recognized degree a 1st generation student?
What about University of Phoenix and other trade school type universities? Do they count as colleges?
How to you proof your status as a 1st generation college student? With all the competition for admission, there is a huge temptation to give wrong information, if there is no way to get caught. Is it fair that those who are honest lose in the race just because someone cheats and gives wrong information about his/her parents’ education?
@MadMoose the colleges decide for themselves what they consider to be first-generation, there is no “I am first generation” checkbox on the common app. Instead, it asks if/where parents went to college and if they earned a degree, what degree.
Some colleges consider a student to be first-gen if a parent attended college but didn’t graduate. Some don’t. Some look only for a 4 year degree, not an AA. The college itself gets to decide.
Now can a student lie? Yes, but if the student is caught lying they can be expelled, as with any lie on the application.
The most support should go to low income students, free test prep, make them aware of SAT and application waivers and even waivers for CSS profile. The sticker price of private schools might scare them off from applying, but they might even be more affordable than some public options because of merit or institutional aid in addition to federal and state.
There are many programs that help first-generation college students, from elementary through high school, think about get into college. I have volunteered for several of them. They do targeted academic work to improve college readiness, help students identify colleges to apply to, help a little with financial aid and scholarship seeking (this is probably the area they can do the most work in), help students choose colleges and complete applications, edit essays, etc. The problem that I have with a lot of these programs (ironically, I was JUST thinking about this before I logged onto CC) is that they end at the point of high school graduation. Yay, you’re in college, it’s all good! Without really thinking about how hard it is to be a first-generation student and to navigate that space, the space between two worlds.
These programs within these colleges acknowledge that space and that’s what they are designed for. There was a Washington Post article about this recently that described how FGCS can’t afford unpaid internships, don’t really know the importance of doing an internship, don’t have parents they can chat with about syllabi and course readings, and often have to fill out financial aid forms by themselves. Sometimes, their parents are relying on THEM for financial information and guidance rather than the other way round. It was like looking in a mirror! As the VP from Rhodes said, the problem at this point is not academic ability (at least not for the kids at URochester and Rhodes. Maybe at your local state school). They’re able. The problem is the social and cultural capital they lack to navigate college.
@NeoDymium I completely agree. I had no idea what GPAs were or what colleges truly expected of you when I was in middle school or even when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school. By then it was too late to know how important good grades were to getting into a university. A lot of students with parents who went to college start doing extra curriculurs as early as middle school. They start studying for SATs since then because their parents want them to do well and know what they need to be good at. Every parent wants their child to do well but those who didn’t go to college unfortunately don’t always know what their child needs to do to get into college and it’s sad. This kind of support should be happening at the earliest levels in high school and middle school. It can’t just be something where someone comes by once a year to talk about college though. There has to be sustained and constant exposure. An environment has to be made by professors and faculty about not just “going to college” but about what it takes to get in. Everyone knows going to college is important. But students should also know how important a good GPA is, how important SAT and ACT scores are, how important giving back and volunteering and doing extra curriculurs are. They need to know how expensive college is early on in order to get them motivated to succeed and to get scholarships and everything else that affluent students already know from their parents.