5 Things First-Generation College Applicants Need to Know
I was recently reminded that first-generation college applicants often don’t know what they don’t know. I was speaking with a student in my school’s Latinx affinity group about the colleges she’s considering applying to next year, and was surprised that such a strong student was looking mostly at colleges with low selectivity (that were also private and expensive.) I asked why she was interested in those schools, and she told me they were the schools that had reached out to her and also offered her intended major, criminal justice. I asked her if she planned to go into law enforcement, but she was actually interested in becoming a lawyer. No one had ever told her that you don’t need a specific major for law school. She was also surprised to learn that law school admission is an entirely separate process from undergraduate admission.
Conversations like this were common when I worked primarily with first-generation, lower-income students at a public high school. I frequently played the role of myth buster and enjoyed discussing a range of educational options with kids and their parents. Unfortunately, many high-achieving students from under-resourced schools are not exposed to these conversations, and the stakes are very real. Research shows that lower income students with strong grades frequently undersell themselves by not applying to colleges that are selective — a phenomenon known as “undermatching.” After landing at a college that is not a good fit academically (and perhaps not a match socially or financially, either,) many such students fail to graduate.
A significant factor also at play is the college counseling gap: the fact that most low-income students do not have access to high quality college counseling. Counselors in public schools typically have large caseloads covering all grades and, although highly trained in social-emotional counseling, they rarely have in-depth college admissions knowledge. (Read more here and here for evidence of this knowledge gap and suggestions for what can be done.) To be clear, counselors are not to blame. I know from working in a public school, and having had an opportunity to run a training on selective admissions for counselors in my city, that school counselors want opportunities to learn more and do better. However, so much of their daily work involves managing student crises, and this type of professional development is not easy to access. It’s also notable, if surprising, that graduate programs in school counseling do not emphasize college and career advising. I actually took Vocational, College & Career Advising, the one college counseling course Assumption College requires for aspiring school counselors, over two weekends one summer. Even the professor acknowledged that the course was not in-depth enough to cover such a complicated yet integral aspect of a secondary school counselor’s role.
Below are five of the topics I most frequently discuss with students who will be among the first in their families to attend college. I hope this list can be helpful to students and educators that come across it, and encourage non-educators to have college conversations with the kids in their lives.
5 Things First-Generation College Applicants Need to Know:
1.Your major doesn’t (necessarily) determine your future career. This may seem counterintuitive, but most people do not major in their future job. (Great news if you aren’t sure what you want to do!) Granted, if you definitely want to pursue something you’ll need a specific degree and technical skills for, such as engineering or nursing, you absolutely should major in that field. But if you are not sure — or you’re interested in a career that requires a graduate/professional degree — you should enter undecided, if you can, and then choose the major with the classes that most appeal to you. (I love history, so that’s what I chose to study; my job in school admissions has nothing to do with history — yet I love what I do!)
2. Pre-law and pre-med are not majors. If you search only for “pre-med” and “pre-law” programs, you might miss out on great colleges that actually have everything you’re looking for.
a. You can major in ANYTHING and still go to medical school, although having a strong science background is recommended. Pre-med is a more of a track that will help ensure you take the classes required for medical school admission. Most colleges have a designated pre-med advisor that will help you figure out classes and even advise you on the medical school admissions process.
b. You also can major in ANYTHING if you plan to become a lawyer. Law schools don’t require specific undergraduate classes for entry; instead, you’ll need to demonstrate strong reading, writing and critical thinking skills and get a high score on the Law School Admission Test (don’t worry about that now.) Some popular majors of law school applicants are: political science, history, economics, English, psychology, and philosophy.
3. Private schools are not inherently better than state schools. Particularly if you live in a state that doesn’t have a prestigious public university, you might automatically assume that private colleges are better. This is definitely not the case, and as a matter of fact, many less-selective private colleges have struggled financially and even had to close in recent years. Be sure to include a couple of state schools on your list and really look at what they have to offer. If you’re a strong student, you may find a public university’s honors program to be a good fit, and acceptance often comes with a merit scholarship.
4. Just because a school has good advertising doesn’t mean you should apply. Don’t add a school to your list just because they sent you a flyer or an email. Think about what you’re looking for and use a college search engine (my favorite is the BigFuture college search by College Board) to find schools that meet your criteria. It’s also important to create a balanced list. Just as you do not want to undershoot and only apply to less selective colleges, you also do not want your entire list to be “reach” schools. Check out this blog post from The College Essay Guy for great advice on researching schools and building a list with a reasonable mix of reaches, maybes and likelies.
5. Look for schools that meet full financial need. There are lists available of colleges that are committed to meeting the full demonstrated need of all accepted students. Put simply, meeting full need means that if your financial aid documentation shows that your family can afford to contribute $2,000 per year, the school won’t send you a bill for more than $2,000. (Other schools will ask for more simply because they don’t have the resources to offer full aid packages.) An easy way to figure out if a school meets full need — or comes close — is by checking their College Board profile (from the school’s page, click on Paying and then the tab that says “Financial Aid by the Numbers”.) This page will also show you whether a school gives mostly grants or loans, and the average amount of student loan debt by graduation.
*Important note: schools meeting full demonstrated need for all admitted students tend to be highly selective in their admissions process.
Marilyn Flores currently works in admission at an independent day/boarding school. She previously worked as a higher education advisor for a TRIO-funded program and spent two years in admissions at Smith College. Ms. Flores serves on the Board of Worcester Latino Dollars for Scholars and evaluates scholarship applications for the Red Pine Scholars Program of The Philanthropic Initiative, where she also mentors first-generation college students. She loves reading college essays and is also an Essay Coach for The College Essay Guy. You can reach her at missmariflores(at)gmail.com.
