<p>I have googled this and searched cc without much success. I found one study showing a 4 point admission advantage to students who were "first generation" college students, but the study is based entirely on one year's admission (1995 cohort) at 19 schools.</p>
<p>Does this advantage still hold? Has is grown or melted away? I am not talking about low income or urm, just an otherwise standard issue student who is the first in the family to go to college.</p>
<p>I'm sure being first generation helps, but the first-generation advantage of a first-generation student whose parents are stinking rich and who has grown up in an affluent neighborhood with private SAT tutor and everything probably will be much more negligible than the advantage of a first-generation student whose parents struggled to make a living and who is still doing extraordinarily well in school even though the student has to work and has to take care of younger children.</p>
<p>It helps at certain schools when linked to things like low income, underperforming school, urm status.</p>
<p>I know there is a substantial urm boost, it is the first generation effect I am trying to isolate. I notice that the parent's education level was asked on all of my son's apps, but will it really matter?
And, should it? On paper, his father and I look barely literate (9 and 10th grade dropouts), but I like to think that we are bright, articulate, well read folks with a house full of books and discussion.
We are not "filthy rich", but neither are we at all poor-- We probably will not qualify for any need based aid, even at the most generous/pricey schools.</p>
<p>Hard to believe it will count for anything for an affluent child (no aid). Your location is likely to count for more.</p>
<p>Probably. Should there be? It makes a lot of assumptions, like that children of high school dropouts are inherently disadvantaged. There are many successful high school dropouts. Even income alone is misleading. My EFC is 0 but my life was full of intelligent dinner table discussions about history, politics, current events, etc and I benefited extremely from it. </p>
<p>First generation status should be looked at alongside income, parents' occupations, school performance, etc.</p>
<p>What's a "four point admission advantage"?</p>
<p>My reading of it was that if a student had a 40% chance of admission because of other factors, first generation raised that to a 44% chance of admission.</p>
<p>Wait one needs to demonstrate it? How would we go about doing that? (My parents were not schooled in this country, so I have no actual proof they attended even high school)</p>
<p>I would like to second that question along with ccTransfer10.</p>
<p>My parents received no college education in the United States and their education in my country of origin was more than 25 years ago.</p>
<p>It doesn't matter WHERE the education occurred, if your parents went to college in the US or any other country, you would not be considered first gen to attend college. </p>
<p>The way that first gen is demonstrated is that colleges ask what the highest level of education each of your parents attended (eg. see the CA).</p>
<p>One or two of the supplements required step parent's education level/location as well. So, I am guessing that at those schools, one is not considered "first generation" if a step parent attended college.</p>
<p>Deirdre, the answer to your question is that it depends on the school. If the school has an institutional goal to increase the number of first-generation students (as in, this goal is included in its strategic plan or is a directive from the president or trustees to admissions), then yes, it will give a boost to your application. I'm not sure it's demonstrable, as in there exist statistics to prove this. Other schools may not care, so there would be no benefit.</p>
<p>If you want to know if a school gives a boost to first gens, google the school's Common Data Set and look at Section C7. "First Generation" will have a check box for one of Very Important, Important, Considered, or Not Considered.</p>
<p>Note that some schools ask if your parents attended college. I checked with USC, even one year of cc counts as a yes.</p>