Should I identify as disadvantaged? Here's my situation. I grew up in the inner city of a third world country; neither of my parents graduated high school, and our family owned a small business. Back in middle+high school I used to work there to help my parents out (~20hrs when school was on, and >>40hrs during breaks). However, I feel that education-wise, I am relatively well off. My parents always placed an emphasis in education, hence prohibiting me from working a lot while I had school, and they made lots of sacrifices to ensure I could go to good schools; we were very frugal in terms of clothing/residence/food/etc, but they paid for my education when I only had a partial scholarship to a private school in middle school, and also for books/SAT courses in high school. Also, I had smart older siblings for tutoring and the like. Thoughts?
Identifying as disadvantaged
- Thread starter olivia_k
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Yes you should. And much of this post could be used in your disadvantaged essay, I think. You come off as very aware and humble.
EDIT: This is just my opinion. Not based on a ton of experience with this.
EDIT: This is just my opinion. Not based on a ton of experience with this.
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It sounds like you yourself don't consider yourself disadvantaged. Therefore, you should not consider yourself disadvantaged. Further, while reading your statement it sounded more like a story of success than one of being disadvantaged. Your family overcame adversity to provide the best good they could for their child, education. What is disadvantaged about that?
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I'm in a very similar situation to you. I don't really consider myself disadvantaged overall, because luckily, I enjoyed other advantages that helped me do well in spite of the economic disadvantages. I'm thinking about writing about it in an overcoming adversity essay or perhaps a diversity essay, because from other parts of my application, it will become evident that I grew up very economically disadvantaged and I feel I should address that. Maybe you can address it in your secondaries?
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IMO save it for diversity/adversity secondary essays, most schools don't about disadvantages unless you are URM.
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You should identify yourself as disadvantaged. While others in this forum are correct to suggest that you are a 'success-story', this does not change the fact that you succeeded despite the limitations placed on you and your family. Perhaps with less access to resources than those more financially-well off have, you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps to achieve the same level of success, which speaks much to your discipline, dedication, resourcefulness and the like. Striving through such adversity is a major, major advantage within the realm of medical school admissions, and by no means should you omit your story or yourself from identifying as disadvantaged. I'm giving you the green-light on this one, good luck.
Edit: You should discuss this in the disadvantaged/SES section of your AMCAS application. For your secondary applications, there may or may not be a place to discuss it or further elaborate, depending on the school. I would place greater emphasis on the 'why become a doctor' aspect of your application than 'what I've overcome in my path to become a doctor' in the primary application essay.
Edit: You should discuss this in the disadvantaged/SES section of your AMCAS application. For your secondary applications, there may or may not be a place to discuss it or further elaborate, depending on the school. I would place greater emphasis on the 'why become a doctor' aspect of your application than 'what I've overcome in my path to become a doctor' in the primary application essay.
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I signifcantly disagree OP. I think calling yourself disadvantaged will backfire. The median income in this country is 25k. You are an immigrant success story, in many ways the "American Dream." If I were an AdCom reading your essay, I would wonder if you were truly disadvantaged how you were able to afford SAT prep courses, which are not cheap. (Of course you could omit this fact to bolster your 'credentials') I volunteer with people who come to the soup kitchen not because they are homeless but because they don't have enough money after government benefits and working at fast food resaturants to buy enough food to last the month, Those people are truly economically disadvantaged. In contrast you worked at your family owned business, you were able to go to a PRIVATE middle school - that is NOT disadvantaged. If you do decide to mark yourself as disadvantaged and are honest about your circumstances, it will likely backfire. And, as per my earlier statement, it doesn't sound like you truly consider yourself disadvantaged, and if that is the case, will you be wondering if your MD acceptances are tainted? Are you the type of person that will feel ok with that? FWIW I am from a lower middle class family, went on one vacation to disney world in my whole life, went to public schools, worked 20 hours a week in high school too and full-time during summers. In my neck of the woods that's what we call LIFE.
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Listen to this man (or woman), OP. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Your family may have had to make sacrifices for you to attend those schools and pay for SAT prep courses, but you did attend those schools and you did have those resources.
Also, and someone please correct me here if I'm wrong because I'm not sure, I think there is a spot on your app to provide information about parent's education level/financial information so, even if you don't check the box, adcoms will read between the lines.
Thanks for the input everyone. Of course I will be honest about my circumstaces!! I dont think Ill mark myself as disadvantaged... Ive been volunteering with kids in urban schools for almost ten years and while their SES situation is very similar to mine, many of my students lack the familial support Ive enjoyed. Ill wager that my financial situation was worse than secondchance84's... My neighborhood was pretty dangerous and it affected me while growing up (my family was robbed several times, my childhood friends parents were murdered and she killed herself afterwards). I just feel like these experiences arent relevant anymore and I dont want to talk about them in my app.
This does make me wonder if the people who can truly be considered disadvantaged make it this far (to be considered a competitive med school applicant). Its very bleak, but few of my students make it to a good college, let alone grad programs
This does make me wonder if the people who can truly be considered disadvantaged make it this far (to be considered a competitive med school applicant). Its very bleak, but few of my students make it to a good college, let alone grad programs
"Disadvantaged" is subjective and particular to one's lived experience. Even if you are a success story so to speak, you overcame a lot of circumstances that in and of themselves put you at a disadvantage. The fact that someone is able to apply to medical school is an advantageous feat but does not negate their prior disadvantages.
