I need help deciding whether I am a first generation student. I continue to work on college applications and I am a little confused because of my situation
My mother and my father were both immigrants in the United States for a while. Now they are both citizens.
Although I haven’t seen my father in years, I know he recently attended community college.
Here is the weird scenario though :
My mother received a 5 year degree (for business I think) in Peru, in South America, to a university that is apparently very poor. (the school won’t even show up in the common app portal when you input your parent’s educational information, the community college does though)
When she came to the U.S, this degree did nothing for her and she was in the streets until she met my father.
She had to attend community college to help her in the long run. Now she works at T-J maxx.
You don’t decide if you are first generation or not…the college.admission departments will. Different colleges have different criteria for first generation status. You just need to honestly input the information (colleges attended including international schools).
@arodmciau - believe this isn’t about being a first generation immigrant but about being first generation for college. The question is if your parents attended college.
OP has some ambitious colleges on her list. There are cases where a tippy top will bend the definition- a parent went to some totally unknown program in a home country, gained little beyond some very basic pre-professional or admin type skills, gained little that helped guide a child through high school and the college selection process. They might see that same as no parent college experience. And they’re looking at occupation, as well. This is at the college’s discretion. No predicting how they’ll decide.
Have you tried looking up the Peru college via google, see what’s said or if it even still exists? We can’t tell if your Mom’s work situation is education related, an immigration hurdle, or something else. You can use Addl Info for one line explaining something about the school.
Hi everyone, I recently found out she received no degree and only attended the school. I honestly thought she did, but it makes sense now (or we would be in different shoes). Luckily, I checked in with her and asked, otherwise I would have made a mistake.
The school is still alive and anyone can ultimately attend. I informed my counselor and she said to put that my mother attended some school and that she attended community college to receive a degree there.
Every college has their own definition of 1st gen and they will use the info on your common app to make a determination. Most often it’s defined as not having a parent who obtained a 4-year degree. I’ve sometimes seen it specified as not having a parent who obtained a 4-year degree in the United States.
To add to that:
In the case of divorced and/or never married parents, some colleges define it as whether or not the custodial parent has a college degree, regardless of the status of the non-custodial parent.
Understand that the likelihood that this will make even a hair’s worth of difference in your application decision is very very small.
Yes, top colleges are now including in the entering class profiles X% students of color, Y% first gen, and yes, they are looking harder at having students from a wider range of backgrounds. But it affects decisions at the margins, and (as with other things that are seen as ‘hooks’) typically in conjunction with the larger story arc of your app.
Note that more than half of American adults do not have either a community college or university degree.