First Generation College

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>On what grounds is an applicant considered a first generation college student? If you have parents that attended a university in a third world country, would that count an applicant out of this category even if that country's applicantion process is a lot different and has nothing to do with the US's?</p>

2

<p>No, first generation college student means that “Neither parent had more than a high school education”. </p>

<p>It doesn’t matter where your parents attended college - they still received a college education. </p>

<p>However, a few universities/scholarship programs consider first-gen as not having any parents who received degrees, so I would check up on that. </p>

<p>For more info: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1124205-definition-first-generation-college-student.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1124205-definition-first-generation-college-student.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/568331-can-you-precisely-define-first-generation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/568331-can-you-precisely-define-first-generation.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>Alright- thanks! That pretty much confirms what I thought, but I just had a spur of rather hopeful thoughts that I may be considered otherwise, hahaha.</p>

4

<p>I don’t know about Harvard, but I know Cornell is actually anything less than a 4 year. My parents have 2 years and I’m considered first generation.</p>

5

<p>I can understand why college applicants might be curious about the answer to this question, but it’s important to recognize that applicants don’t have to answer this question for themselves. It’s not as if there’s a box on the Common App that says, “Check here if you’re ‘first generation.’”</p>

<p>As has been mentioned, different colleges and scholarship programs have different ideas of what counts as “first generation.” In addition, many colleges and scholarship programs don’t really care all that much about first-gen status anyway. Colleges get information about your family–including your parents, their occupations, their education, etc.–from the family section of the Common App. If they do care whether an applicant is “first generation,” they’ll make their own determination using the information from the application.</p>

6

<p>My dad did get a bachelors, so I guess that removes me in every way from that categorization.</p>