If either parent went to college, anywhere, you are not a first gen.
Thank you all for clarifying the 3 doubts.
I think Asians are still URM at most schools. Many schools do not care and you get no ‘boost’ from your race at all. Being male may help you more than being Indian at many of the LACs.
As you are a US citizen, your race will be reported as part of the school’s profile. International students are not reported in that data, so just because a school reports 4% Asian doesn’t mean there won’t be many more Asian faces around the campus. My daughter’s campus is 1/3 international students, so even though she’s reported as part of the 6% Asian students on campus, there are far more than that because of the international students. I don’t think the school cares about the race of the students it admits at all. It would rather have more females than more URMs.
Just for others reading, there is no one simple answer to first gen definition even though posters will say otherwise. Here is how Swarthmore defines it:
So your parents can in fact have college degrees and you might qualify as first gen at some schools and/or for some programs.
^ that is a peculiar way to look at first gen, and is not likely to be representative of the views of many schools.
Just sayin’
Brown has a similar definition.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/publications/report/3724 says that, for California public schools, “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.” (CCC = California community colleges) Note that there is no exclusion for college attendance or bachelor’s degree earning outside of the US in this definition.
So yes, it can vary depending on the college.
It can also vary as to whether it makes a difference in admission to the college. It obviously does not for the community colleges, since they are open admission (though a community college may offer services specifically helpful to first generation students who are likely to be less familiar with college than other students).
Yeah it may be more inclusive in theory, but I’m not really sure Swarthmore or Brown is looking at a student whose parent went to a top 10 or 15 college in India or China and owning a home in California as first gen. But if that’s the case many Asians would be happy with that.
Seems like Brown’s and Swarthmore’s wider definition of “first generation” makes it look like they more disadvantaged students than they actually do, since the kids of highly educated immigrants with non-US bachelor’s degrees tend not to be as disadvantaged as the term “first generation” is usually assumed to suggest. The California publics’ narrower definitions of “first generation” look like they are actually trying to define it in ways that indicate disadvantage of the type that “first generation” is usually assumed to suggest (though the contexts and definitions appear different for community colleges versus universities).
One could argue that certain types of tiger parenting sometimes found with immigrants with non-US bachelor’s degrees is a disadvantage, but that is not usually the type of disadvantage associated with “first generation”.
What Swarthmore or Brown mean is “if your parents are clueless about the college admissions process, don’t have the tools to intervene on your behalf to plan ahead and can’t help you through it financially or with advice” but they phrase it more politely.
In other words, if your dad was a nurse in Germany or has a post O-level business diploma from Bangladesh yes the student is first gen; but an MBA, a foreign college degree followed by a PhD or engineering degree in the US, a top 15 degree from any country, by definition the student isn’t first gen.
Some colleges that consider first gen status look at whether the parent has a 4- year degree.
For Op: a parent attending graduate school anywhere means you’re not first gen.
The operative phrase being “no simple answer.” Each college is free to determine definitions and, where allowed by law, determine what bump, if any, any of the attributes will be given.
For the OP, these questions on URM and first gen need to be filed under “it is what it is.” There is no box on any application that says “Check here if you are first gen/URM/legacy, etc…” The applicant simply fills out the biographical data for themselves and the parents, including their education, and each college will decide what (if anything) it will do with that information.
@skieurope, thanks for the amazing clarification. I appreciate your time taken for the advice.