<p>we all know that most first generation applicants gets a boost in their applications.</p>
<p>but what about people who has parents that only received education from outside of the United States?
do we also get some kind of boost since our parents' English skills are usually not as good as others and that they never had school experience in the US thus can only help us as much as first-generation's parents?</p>
<p>First-generation implies your family has not had the same opportunities to succeed as middle-class families (the two often go together: level of education of parents, and socioeconomic status). More importantly, no matter where your parents went to school, the fact they did go on to higher studies suggest they've been able to support and guide you through academia in a way parents who, say, barely can read and or introduce you to Kierkegaard and the cultural language of academia can't.</p>
<p>No, it's not a boost.</p>
<p>Just because the parents didn't go to college doesn't mean they are stupid.... you make it sound like they are incapable of anything.</p>
<p>Look at Bill Gates, he drop out of Harvard.
and Dean Kamen (inventor of Segway and working on prosthetic arm and one of the founder of FIRST robotics) dropped out of Worcester.
So technically.. no college for them</p>
<p>many parents might not have the money to go to college back then really doesn't mean they can't read or write.</p>
<p>I live in a neighborhood where all the houses are 1 mil + even though they aren't that great, but there are still so many people with parents that didn't go to college. I mean having that amount of money certainly mean they are capable of getting tutor and etc.
And just because one's parents went to college like 20 years ago doesn't mean they remember what they learned. I mean Trig? Calculus? how many could help with that? And Lit? My parents haven't even heard of Pride and Prejudice, and never read classics for lit class because they when to college right after Mao died and there was finally college in China again.</p>
<p>That's not what I meant at all, and I agree with you completely. In terms of "knowledge" of academia, its cultural language, how to navigate the educational system, the skillset one needs to succeed in a particular structure of schooling, etc - in all these ways, families who fall outside of the middle-class norm are at a disadvantage. Add to that the obvious hindrances added when you have parents working double shifts instead of a comfy and benefit-rich 9 to 5; less connections; less time, money and energy available to get your kid acquainted with the skillset and norms needed. Oftentimes, it's the system that's screwed up, not the families!</p>
<p>For example, while my family fled the civil war with two university degrees, my parents quickly sunk to the lowest end of the ladder in the country where we got asylum. Both me and my sister did well in school because of their emphasis on education and the knowledge, values they could pass on to us; we both also dropped out because WE had ended up working-class kids and lost out on the other part of the resources college-educated parents usually bring in terms of material stability.</p>
<p>In sum, education and class intersect, and the "push" first-generation college kids receive is partly due to the fact they simply have far less resources available for them to succeed than students who do have actively involved, well-educated parents to guide them through this particular system (schooling).</p>
<p>um my dad comes home at around 9 pm, i only really see him for 30 minutes during dinner before i go back to my room to finish hw.
and my mom lives 800 miles away</p>
<p>higher level jobs also mean more stress and responsibility and there is also a lot of competition at work and sometimes the only way to beat your competitions is to work more.</p>
<p>Neither of my parents went to college (my father even dropped out of high school) and initially they made me take vocational classes instead of college prep ones because they assumed that I would not attend college either.</p>
<p>I am sure they would have had a different attitude if they had got a college education, regardless of where or how long ago.</p>