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The common app asks the highest degree your parents have earned. If your parents never attended college, you would select “high school”, making you first gen.</p>
<p>How much of a hook is being first generation?
WIll it cancel out the affirmative action working against me? (White female from CA)
My dad dropped out of high school and my mom graduated but never went to college…</p>
<p>It is a good enough hook that Yale lists 12% of its admittees as first gen and most private colleges like to have a percentage allocated to first gen. If you really want to push it, make sure you mention it some where in the essays too that your parents are looking forward to you as the first one to go to college.</p>
<p>I dont know if it works for you in state colleges though.</p>