<p>how much does being a first generation student help?? do you think it can make a certain impact on the decisions that they make??</p>
<p>yes! If you look at statistic for college acceptances and scholarship opportunities it is very beneficial. UChicago likes first generation students.</p>
<p>^is being a 1st generation really rare in the us?</p>
<p>It was more rare at top schools before they started outreach programs. Being first gen is a tip factor. It’s a bigger tip if it is accompanied by low income and URM status. It is not a hook. It just means that the colleges look at school performance and scores in light of the disadvantages that often come with having uneducated parents.</p>
<p>can someone explain what a hook is? i really don’t get that</p>
<p>^^^being a minority, having donated a lot of $$$, recruited athlete, and 1st generation</p>
<p>Edit: its just an excuse to accept less qualified students really.</p>
<p>Hooks are things like athletics, ethnic diversity, international citizenship, institutional legacy and loyalty, musical and artistic needs, component schools or special academic programs, and in some cases, even gender. Students in such categories, which vary from institution to institution, have a “hook” because they help meet institutional needs.
[quoted from a college web site]
</p>
<p>def. use it to your advantage, make it a sobstory if you have to. Just wondering are you a URM?</p>
<p>is being an immigrant also helpful?(which means having an international citizenship)
and btw,im 1st gen and low-income.so do you think these 3 factors will help me a lot?</p>
<p>im not a URM,im asian 
but im a 1st gen + immigrant + low-income.</p>
<p>It matters at places where first-generation students aren’t as common, which is typically the elite of the elite. Otherwise, no, it doesn’t count for much at most places. Public universities, for example, don’t consider it anywhere near as much as people seem to think they do.</p>
<p>The more elite colleges like to boast that they’ve picked up a “diamond in the rough” and are smoothing them out with their fantastic facilities and such. 1st generation means the student who is applying is relatively ambitious, not hazed by their background, so elite colleges like that kind of story.</p>
<p>Hey guys, I have a question about this. I have lived with just my mom all my life (single parent, etc.) and although she had gone to college a little awhile back, she never graduated from anywhere. Would this make me a 1st generation? Or does it mean that your parents have never gone to college at all? Thanks!</p>
<p>“The more elite colleges like to boast that they’ve picked up a “diamond in the rough””</p>
<p>Where do they do this boasting? Can we see it on their web sites or in their literature? Thanks.</p>
<p>I’m a first generation student and have 250k+ income. Does this mitigate my advantage or what?</p>
<p>^ First gen and not needing FA is a double boost at need-aware schools.</p>
<p>It works for all students, really. But the top tier colleges like to spread their name and a good way is to admit students who are, say, first generation or a minority, because it fulfills this story of accomplishment and unused potential–diamonds in the rough. The top schools want to produce diamonds from all their graduates, and admitting diamonds in the rough is definitely one way to do it.
Elite colleges pick up on students who demonstrate a higher level of potential than their applications show based on being “late bloomers” or perhaps from being held back from their backgrounds. If these students are admitted, the idea around it that both the school and the student are benefiting from each other. Once one of their “diamonds in the rough” prove to be successful later in life, both they and their college will be proud to have been there for each other; the college’s name will be established as the school that really grounded and sculpted the foundation of the student’s future, etc. That’s enough for their boasting.
Don’t forget that being a first generation prospective student is a hook. Colleges of course would not boast right out there about this on their websites and viewbooks; they are more subtle about it. They will acknowledge it (such as when they acknowledge legacies) but it will be toned down.</p>
<p>Okay, so my father went to a community college for two years, and my mother didn’t go to college at all, does that make me a First generation college student? I don’t need FA either lol</p>
<p>^ Yes. 
:)</p>