Hey Guys,
I am applying for 2013 admission and I am starting to work through the AMCAS application.
My situation: Growing up, my family of 4 had an average income of 20-25K per year. My brother and I had low cost government insurance during high school, we also qualified for the low cost lunch program, but my parents were too proud to accept. The low cost insurance to me was a big deal, because when I had to get knee surgery during high school, I had to travel 1.5 hours away to a county hospital for the operation and the physical therapy. I also had a job since I was 16 in order to help pay for groceries and for my own discretionary spending. Also, 90% of my college financial aid was need based scholarship.
My parents worked very hard to get me into good schools (lottery for a charter middle school, moved to a better community for a good public high school, lucky enough to get a large financial aid package to an elite private school), and gave me a relatively stable household, but at the same time they were first gen. immigrants with no college, and so I felt very ill prepared for undergrad despite going to a pretty decent public school.
I just don't want to sound like a pity/ sob story, and I feel that despite these things I have done pretty well for myself. So I am very unsure if I should mark myself as disadvantaged or not.
Thanks for the help guys!
I am applying for 2013 admission and I am starting to work through the AMCAS application.
My situation: Growing up, my family of 4 had an average income of 20-25K per year. My brother and I had low cost government insurance during high school, we also qualified for the low cost lunch program, but my parents were too proud to accept. The low cost insurance to me was a big deal, because when I had to get knee surgery during high school, I had to travel 1.5 hours away to a county hospital for the operation and the physical therapy. I also had a job since I was 16 in order to help pay for groceries and for my own discretionary spending. Also, 90% of my college financial aid was need based scholarship.
My parents worked very hard to get me into good schools (lottery for a charter middle school, moved to a better community for a good public high school, lucky enough to get a large financial aid package to an elite private school), and gave me a relatively stable household, but at the same time they were first gen. immigrants with no college, and so I felt very ill prepared for undergrad despite going to a pretty decent public school.
I just don't want to sound like a pity/ sob story, and I feel that despite these things I have done pretty well for myself. So I am very unsure if I should mark myself as disadvantaged or not.
Thanks for the help guys!
