I accidentally lied on a college app, and got accepted to a top 20 university please help!!!

Thank you

My two cents: they accepted you because they liked the totality of what you had to offer, and they want you to come, not because you checked some kind of first-gen box for them (as was said upthread, they already know your parents attended college, so you’re not really a first-gen anyway). I think if you call the admissions office and say that (i) you checked the “some college” box because that’s what you understood to be the case, and (ii) discovered after the fact that your parents, who live in another state, had later gone back and finished college, and that (iii) you just want to correct the record, they’ll say “thanks for calling” and that will be that. They really don’t want to rescind your admission - they want you! - and I would think they’d appreciate your honesty and view it as further evidence that they’d made the right decision in the first place. Just be matter-of-fact on the call, don’t over-apologize and don’t say you lied - you didn’t. Also, don’t say anything about how you’re not really a first-gen or anything like that - that’s for them to conclude, not you - just say you’re correcting the record, and keep the conversation brief.

@Lindagaf @DeepBlue86 Colleges have their own definition of what constitutes 'First generation". I believe Cornell considers anyone who doesn’t have at least one parent with an undergraduate degree as first generation so in this case, OP would have gotten the First Generation benefit even though their parents had some college. I think OP needs to call and explain the situation as soon as possible.

Good luck!!

I concur with the general consensus here and agree that you should call Cornell, explain that you now realize that you misunderstood your parents’ educational history, and that now that you know you want to set the record straight. I expect that it won’t be a problem. Good luck at Cornell!

MODERATOR’S NOTE:
For numerous reasons, the main one being there is nothing left to say, I am closing this thread.