What do they mean when they ask if you are "educationally disadvantaged"??

[baylormed]

What exaclty do they mean by "educationally disadvantaged"??
(It's a question on Texas Tech's secondary)

Is anyone in college really educationally disadvantaged? If we are all in college, then we all have the opportunity to study...so saying anything less might sound whiny. And I feel saying something like "I had to go to CC" might sound like you are complaining instead of helping (I didn't go to CC, I just used it as an example).
What are they looking for? Inner city high schools? Unrecognized high schools (like mine was for a while for low TAAS scores...)?

What is it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

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[MonkeyNuts!]

What exaclty do they mean by "educationally disadvantaged"??
(It's a question on Texas Tech's secondary)

Is anyone in college really educationally disadvantaged? If we are all in college, then we all have the opportunity to study...so saying anything less might sound whiny. And I feel saying something like "I had to go to CC" might sound like you are complaining instead of helping (I didn't go to CC, I just used it as an example).
What are they looking for? Inner city high schools? Unrecognized high schools (like mine was for a while for low TAAS scores...)?

What is it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I always thought they meant like ADD or like learning disorders...

 

[baylormed]

I always thought they meant like ADD or like learning disorders...

Mmm...I never thought of it like that, but it might be possible.

Maybe LizzyM can help us if she is around.

 

[Depakote]

My class had to share one textbook. The teacher would beat us with it if we got the answer wrong.

 

[baylormed]

My class had to share one textbook. The teacher would beat us with it if we got the answer wrong.

But really.

 

[christvida]

What exaclty do they mean by "educationally disadvantaged"??
(It's a question on Texas Tech's secondary)

Is anyone in college really educationally disadvantaged? If we are all in college, then we all have the opportunity to study...so saying anything less might sound whiny. And I feel saying something like "I had to go to CC" might sound like you are complaining instead of helping (I didn't go to CC, I just used it as an example).
What are they looking for? Inner city high schools? Unrecognized high schools (like mine was for a while for low TAAS scores...)?

What is it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I think they mean disadvantaged during high school. In my school we were given free breakfast and lunch because so many were under the poverty line. This also went during the summer because they were worried that kids didn't have enough to eat at home. We were also recognized by the state of Texas has being disadvantaged (I think its called Title 1) so we received lots of money. We always had really good TAAS scores...we were usually 90% pass or higher. So most of us were smart...just poor

 

[jillibean]

Maybe it means that your parents never graduated from HS and encouraged you to become a plumber rather than wasting your time and $$ on college.

 

[amathew]

I think they mean disadvantaged during high school. In my school we were given free breakfast and lunch because so many were under the poverty line. This also went during the summer because they were worried that kids didn't have enough to eat at home. We were also recognized by the state of Texas has being disadvantaged (I think its called Title 1) so we received lots of money. We always had really good TAAS scores...we were usually 90% pass or higher. So most of us were smart...just poor

I agree. I know in my high school a lot of the students worked while studying, some of them not for their own allowance but to help with their families' economy. That might be an educational disadvantage cuz you're using the time otherwise spent on studying to support your family

 

[farikanok]

I think they mean disadvantaged during high school. In my school we were given free breakfast and lunch because so many were under the poverty line. This also went during the summer because they were worried that kids didn't have enough to eat at home. We were also recognized by the state of Texas has being disadvantaged (I think its called Title 1) so we received lots of money. We always had really good TAAS scores...we were usually 90% pass or higher. So most of us were smart...just poor

i always thought they meant HS as well. my HS was also a Title I school with 90% of the kids on free/reduced lunch. except, we weren't smart lol we had an average ACT score of 16 and a drop out rate of ~40%

 

[baylormed]

i always thought they meant HS as well. my HS was also a Title I school with 90% of the kids on free/reduced lunch. except, we weren't smart lol we had an average ACT score of 16 and a drop out rate of ~40%

My school was in a low-income part of town (while still not the poorest), and we were the only high school in the city w/ a program for pregnant girls and their "partners", so we wound up with many of them, who most of the time didn't care for school at all. That's why we had kind of a low passing-rate on state exams. Also, many of the students were recent immigrants and didn't speak English (like 20%, I'd say, and some just refused to speak it...don't even get me started on how stupid that is)

However, we had the most money awarded for scholarships during graduation in my class out of the entire city, and we had one of the best football and debate teams.

I was just wondering if I should mark YES or NO, because I don't want to sound like I'm whining, since I did fine.

 

[Orthodoc40]

Or maybe you got your undergrad degree by going to music school. Or art school. Or majored in opera singing, or sculpture, or... I think that might count as educationally disadvantaged when applying to medical school!!

 

[Bubblehead-to-MD]

I always thought they meant like ADD or like learning disorders...

That was my first instinct to the question as well.

 

[MiesVanDerMom]

i put down how I had to leave Oberlin for my state school since I couldn't afford it anymore due to a drought (family farm).

 

[neurodoc]

The only good from identifying yourself with "ED" (as defined in the title, not as in the case of Bob Dole) would be to prompt the ApComm to cut you some slack for deficient grades/MCATs...

This might help if you are a member of an officially recognized "disadvantaged minority" group. For example if you are African American, rasied by a crack-addled mother and your father was absent (because he was incarcerated) and you graduated from college with a 3.0 average in a sociology major and got straight 7's on your MCAT, your ED status might help you chances. you are just a white male with the same history, ED status might not help much.