!st Generation College Student/URM

<p>If both parents have had some college but didn't complete their degree is this considered 1st generation college student on college applications? I was a 1st generation college student who didn't graduate and was wondering if my daughter would then be considered 1st gen. college student. Neither of my parents graduated HS. If a student has one parent from South East Asia (not India) and one from US what category would they fall under? Multi-cultural, bi-racial, etc.? This seems a bit confusing since there is often only an "Asian" category. Thanks.</p>

<p>I don't think that Asians of any sort -- even those from fascinating and unusual places like Vietnam -- are considered URMs.</p>

<p>It depends on the school. Some schools only consider first generation if the parent has never attended college while others consider first gen if the parent has not completed a degree.</p>

<p>multi-cultrual, bi-racial you would just check other and indicate your childs ethnicity <strong><em>+</em></strong>_.</p>

<p>Is that because there are quite a number of them applying to college or just in general?</p>

<p>
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I don't think that Asians of any sort -- even those from fascinating and unusual places like Vietnam -- are considered URMs.

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<p>That's not correct. It depends on the college, and in particular the college's location. In CA, students from SEA would not be considered unusual, but at NE LACs, they would be. When we toured Bates and Bowdoin, the adofficer was stressing that the college wanted to attract more minorities, including Asians. In this context, students of Chinese , Japanese and Korean extraction would be quite attractice and students of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Hmong origin even more so.</p>

<p>Some college forms allow students to check more than one box. Others have a box for bi-racial.</p>

<p>I think URM was the wrong acronym choice. Colleges do ask about ethnicity and because her father is from South East Asia it gets a bit confusing, to me anyway. She recently checked off Asian on one of those forms you fill out when you visit and it didn't seem to reflect her background correctly. Some forms don't have "other" as choice.</p>

<p>marite,</p>

<p>I get the feeling that they would rather see one or the other, but having two ethnicities doesn't make a difference. For example, if both parents were from Afghanistan that might make a difference, but if only one is, not sure that plays a role or not.</p>

<p>I don't know if it does, either. But it does not hurt to check both boxes, and even to add more specific information. And to the extent that her cultural background has been an important part of her identity, this could come out in an essay--including one about growing up bicultural.</p>