“Neither of my parents even went to high school.”
If your grades and test scores are competitive, it’s a big advantage. I recently attended an admissions session at selective college and the admissions officer highlighted, in a big way, the percent of the class that was first gen, even more than the percentage that were minorities. Adcoms love to tout first-gen students as a way of feeling good about themselves and showing they’re contributing to social mobility. It can’t make an uncompetitive applicant competitive, but it can be a huge tiebreaker among applicants that are considered competitive.