<p>Hi. I am a newbie with a question. How does a parent(s) level of education, no college, some college, or college graduate help or hinder their child's college admissions chances?</p>
<p>Any thoughts? </p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>Yes. The kid might get a modest boost in admissions at many schools if s/he is the first in the family to ever go to college. And similarly, a higher level of performance might be expected from a kid who had the advantages of having parents who both have advanced degrees. I don't think it's a huge push in either direction, but it's one more factor that gets looked at.</p>
<p>courier, it is interesting that many colleges say what you said, yet, at least for the elite places, their actual practices, as shown by research, are quite different. </p>
<p>Part of the debate on affirmative action, legacy preferences and so forth of the past few years led researchers to look at the effect family background has on admissions, bases on SES (socio-economic status). What researchers found is that lower SES worked mildly against applicants, contrary to adcom pronouncements regarding interest in SES diversity. This was after controlling for race.</p>
<p>Interesting results.</p>
<p>I don't know the particular research you mention, newmassdad. But I don't think it's necessarily inconsistent with what coureur and many colleges say. Certainly, lower SES can work mildly against applicants because lower SES would correlate with lower high school achievement and SAT scores.</p>
<p>I think the "boost" of first-generation college student tends to come when two high achieving applicants are compared with each other - the one whose parents have advanced degrees may be evaluated in a "to whom much is given much is expected context;" the one whose parents have only high school degrees (or less) may be seen as having achieved greatly in an "overcoming odds" context.</p>
<p>I would also expect low education levels to generally work against the applicant, except in some extreme situations. (I guess the curve would be high for extremely low levels, low after that, and moving upwards as parents become more educated.) The thing is, it's hard to convince people that you are deep-down serious about education - and a top-notch education - when one parent never graduated and the other graduated from an okay school. </p>
<p>Kids whose parents went to top schools just look like education is more important to their families. They didn't happen to get straight As; they have ambitious, high-achieving parents who instilled their kids with certain values.</p>
<p>the UC's give a plus factor to kids who are first gen to go to college.</p>
<p>jmmom,</p>
<p>NO, the research found, even when controlling for individual performance, that lower SES were admitted at a lower rate. The effect has nothing to do with lower scores.</p>