Why does the Common Ap. ask for parent's occupation?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Not only that, they want detailed information of parent's education. Shouldn't questions be limited to the student's accomplishments?</p>

2

<p>Scholarship opportunities based upon parent’s occupation (my D1 got 1/2 tuition because of my occupation!). Also scholarships for 1st generation college students.</p>

3

<p>Schools give special consideration to students who are first generation in their family to attend college. Also, there could be some scholarships available to first generation applicants as well. The application is meant to give as much information about the student as possible, and their family background is one part of that.</p>

4

<p>^^^
Interesting! Thank you, I’ll try not to be so paranoid. Still, it seems odd that a scholarship is specific to the children of someone with a particular occupation, unless the child was choosing to study that same occupation.</p>

<p>I wonder what they think of a two PhD family, probably wonder why gpa isn’t higher…</p>

5

<p>People who bequeath money to a school for use for scholarships set all sorts of different conditions on them, some rather unusual. Ancestors from Bavaria, children of farmers, whatever. They can set whatever conditions are meaningful to them, and the school can, presumably, choose whether they want to be offering scholarships with those particular conditions (e.g. specifyiing a student of Irish descent would fly, specifying a “white” student maybe not).</p>

6

<p>DS once filled out a form (thankfully not a college app) listing my occupation as “faceless bureaucrat.” I’m vetting his apps before he sends them in - I doubt there’s a scholarship for that one!</p>

7

<p>^ LOL!</p>

<p>10char</p>

8

<p>Schools also want to know if students have overcome a disadvantaged background–the 4.0 student whose parents never finished high school and work as laborers will be considered differently from the 4.0 student who had the advantages of a comfortable upper middle class background with all the privileges that normally entails.</p>

9

<p>Pghmom, your son must be a comic. Thanks for the laugh.</p>