I never knew this was a thing. Neither my husband nor I ever finished college. My husband’s family was extremely poor when he was growing up, and it never occurred to any of them that he might go to college. I was expected to go to college, but due to lack of planning on my parents part, (they had no clue about any of the college stuff) I had no choice but commute to the local state university. I was miserable, depressed, and I ended up withdrawing in the first semester.
In spite of the lack of degrees, both my husband I have had successful IT careers. I learned network engineering, worked as a subject matter expert for networking at a consulting company, and I’m a Sr. Manager now at a Fortune 500. The lack of a degree never stopped me, BUT nobody knew how to use computers, routers, or any of that when it first started. Many people were self taught, or learned on the job. Those days are gone now. You don’t see TOO many people without degrees having the success we have had.
My oldest is a junior, and his guidance counselor mentioned that being a first generation student helps with college admissions. Why is that?
^because many college wish to “level the playing field” when it comes to whom they admit.
Kids whose parents DID go to college are expected to go to college.
not so kids whose parents were not able to , despite their intelligence or ability.
Being a first gen college student is not a hook. It is more of a tip, usually when combined with other things, poverty, attending a low performing school where very few students attend 4-year colleges, and limited resuources when it comes to college access and creating a college-going culture.
We don’t plan on him applying anywhere that these things make a difference, but it is interesting. His high school is 75% low income, 65% Hispanic, 12% Black, and the remainder split about evenly between Asian and White. The G&T magnet program is in the School (my son is in it). Many of his classmates are low income and/or URM, so there are usually several kids heading towards the top schools on scholarship.
It just never occurred to us that there was anything that would possibly give our kid a boost of ant kind. We have no Alma mater, neither do grandparents, no alumni associations, no real understanding the collegiate social scene at all.
Honestly, we don’t tell anyone we never went to college. People assume we both have degrees. We don’t lie about it, but it is somewhat embarrassing when I am directly asked and I have to admit it.
My son wasn’t aware we had no college degrees until about a year ago. We didn’t want our kids thinking they didn’t need it.
In our school most of the first gen potential college students are also lower income, so I can see the two going hand in hand to be a hook. My county has 22% of adults over age 25 with a college degree (average for the US is 30% doing a quick google search). The number lowers to 16% for my school district. We have plenty of first gen students.
One of the “problems” with first gen is the lack of knowing what to do and when for college admissions. Those students often need more direction/assistance because there is little “back up” from home - perhaps a cheering section, but perhaps not too. You’re doing well for your kids by reading all about it gleaning advice. If your income is higher I’m not really sure being first gen is a hook. I think the goal of colleges is selecting some who “haven’t had a chance” to change socio-economic groups that chance.
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In our school most of the first gen potential college students are also lower income, so I can see the two going hand in hand to be a hook. My county has 22% of adults over age 25 with a college degree (average for the US is 30% doing a quick google search). The number lowers to 16% for my school district. We have plenty of first gen students.
One of the “problems” with first gen is the lack of knowing what to do and when for college admissions. Those students often need more direction/assistance because there is little “back up” from home - perhaps a cheering section, but perhaps not too. You’re doing well for your kids by reading all about it gleaning advice. If your income is higher I’m not really sure being first gen is a hook. I think the goal of colleges is selecting some who “haven’t had a chance” to change socio-economic groups that chance.
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The only difference for our kids is that we have had no experience at all in the run-up in high school to prepare for college. Neither my husband nor I were on that track ourselves - we didn’t know about the importance of the types of ECs, nor even that those things mattered all that much. All we knew is that you needed to have good grades and scores, and we did encourage our kids to do whatever interested them as far as clubs and activities go. We didn’t realize that people were coaching their kids to do SPECIFIC activities, clubs and were being somewhat strategic about it until relatively recently. For our oldest, it’s too late to talk to him about that. Our younger two are not in high school yet, so we can do better guiding them. We never considered the issues on his ECs to be a major problem anyway, as we never, ever considered HYPSM in the first place. It just was not and is not on the radar. I think the guidance counselor was trying to get our son to consider some reach schools to round out his application list, but I think it’s pointless to do so. If in some bizarro world HYPSM decided to let him in, we’d have to tell him he couldn’t go anyway. If he were our only child? Maybe I’d be kicking myself for screwing up his chances, because if he WERE our only child, we probably could swing a private school education. Thankfully - we have three kids, so I don’t need to beat myself up.
All that said - we always knew that we 1) Make too much to expect any financial aid. 2) While our son likely does qualify for good merit scholarships at many private schools, the amount left to cover is still in the $30-40K range per year which is not feasible for us. 3) His grades and test scores will qualify him for great merit at several schools that are within our price range, and that’s fine with us.
@elodyCOH I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. I’m very in favor of letting ECs be kid driven and not parent or college “wishes” driven. If I could think of a stronger word than “very” right now I’d use it. I feel for kids whose parents plan out their lives for them. There’s a huge difference between encouraging a college bound academic track/grades and doing “something” (EC-wise) vs plotting and planning every little step with some goal or another in the parent’s line of sight.
I’ve never bought into the Ivy or Bust mentality. Even then, if students want it for themselves that’s one thing. When the parents insist that’s totally different. I have a tippy top lad - tested gifted at age 4 and “sticking with it” through graduating Summa Cum Laude at his college, etc, and still pulling in the top of the curve in med school (as per exams) as I type. I was more than happy to let him thoroughly investigate colleges himself. I gave him suggestions to look at, of course, but his decision was all his (finances permitting as we’re not full pay). He never even applied to an Ivy. Not one single regret. His life and what he chooses to do within it is his. We’re just the cheerleading squad and we pay what bills we can.
Same goes for my other two. I love them all and support them all (cheerleading and bills).
@elodyCOH you and husband as teenagers were good examples of first gen students falling through the cracks. The emphasis on first gen nowadays is to provide support and work proactively so first gen students complete college successfully.
In general, first gen status at most is a slight upward tick. You can view the CDS (Common Data Set) of any college to see whether they consider first gen status and how much weight they may give it. Your son may be offered special programs once accepted.
My D declined those programs. While she is genuinely first gen, she attended a private HS (on scholarship) and many of her extended family have advanced degrees, so she wasn’t apprehensive about going away to college and she is doing great.
I am in the same boat as you. My son is first generation. Who knew it would be this much to learn. I’m spending hours upon hours on this forum learning. Maybe I want to live vicariously through my son because I never went to college. I hated school so it was not even a thought for me. Big mistake.
Also colleges may have programs that help support first generation students…if your parents have already attended, they know how college “works”. If they have not, they don’t.
I was first gen, of the “parents want you to go to college but really have no clue how it works and aren’t going to pay for it” variety. They left us to our own devices and expected us to be independent, which was great. In contrast, I teach many first gen students who are much more “first-gen-y” in that they have parents who won’t let them go to a residential campus because they are still expected to help out at home. The parents can’t understand when, say, the student wants to skip a big family picnic to work on a research project that is worth 20% of their grade. The parents think of them as available to run errands, pick up relatives at the airport, that sort of thing, even during class time. Those students would probably benefit academically from being in residential campuses. It’s hard to see the super bright ones get lower grades than they are capable of, or even drop out, because of the push-pull of family obligations and expectations. I think that is the sort of “first gen” student that admissions is thinking of when they use the term, really. They aren’t thinking so much of the middle-class child of a successful realtor or HR person or entrepreneur who doesn’t have a college degree.
First Generation seems like a bit of a scam to me, or at best a good idea that has been poorly implemented. Typically, colleges only look at the parents education and if they graduated from a [bold]U.S.[/bold] college. So grandparents on both sides could all have PhD’s or both parents could be Oxford grads, but the student would still be considered first generation.
A good resource to learn more about applying as a first generation student is the organization “I’m First” which can be found at this link: https://imfirst.org/ Be sure to get the guide that they have on their website and read it thoroughly. I found it very helpful in advising my first generation students. Also sign up for their newsletter since they had valuable information about diversity fly-ins and other opportunities. Being first generation plays a role in high school through outreach programs, summer programs and special opportunities. It then carries into the college admission process through diversity fly-ins, admission reps assigned to first gen applicants, scholarships and hosted events. Once in college you want to make sure our first gen students gets the support that may be needed since it leads to greater success for them in college. This can take the form of a pre-college start program (like Georgia Tech’s Challenge Program), additional advising or tutoring and first generation clubs (my student started one at Pitzer College for Asian students). Hope this info helps.
@shortnuke What are you basing that impression on? I’m sure completed degrees outside the USA are taken into consideration as well as the family’s assets/income level. It is all part of the picture. I wouldn’t sell the colleges short on understanding the complexities of the issue and factoring in different components.
@shortnuke I’m curious where you see that happening in any sort of great numbers. I work in a statistically average public high school (19 years now) and can’t say I’ve seen it even once. I know different areas can be vastly different… but I have serious doubts whether scenarios like you suggest produce significant numbers of students colleges admit under the guise of first gen.
@doschicos Every definition that I’ve seen of First Generation College Student has focused solely on the parents or guardians and have specified that none of the parents or guardians had received a bachelor’s degree from a US college. Here’s an example from Brown:
@Creekland It’s difficult to say if this is happening in specific numbers, or how much of an edge FGCS can give an applicant for admissions or scholarships. However, I’ve seen plenty of posters here on CC that would technically fit the definition of a FGCS.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/publications/report/3724 says that “Whereas CCC defines students as first generation if neither parent has ever attended college, the CSU and UC definition is that neither parent has earned a bachelor’s degree.” Note that this definition means that those whose parents have a non-US bachelor’s degree are not first generation. Given that CCC (California community colleges), CSU, and UC have much larger enrollments than Brown, your claim that Brown’s definition is representative of colleges and universities in general is questionable.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/10/who-are-first-generation-students-and-how-do-they-fare does say that definitions of “first generation” are not consistent across colleges. However, it does not look like the article or referenced paper indicate that the variation is due to the non-US bachelor’s degree not counting as a bachelor’s degree like Brown does, so it could be that Brown is an outlier.
