<p>Does this factor count as much as URM status does in the Law school admissions process? Furthermore, does anyone know anything on the CLEO program the government runs?</p>
<p>Anyone know anything on it?</p>
<p>1.) If the law process is anything like the med school or undergraduate processes, nothing counts as much as URM status.</p>
<p>2.) What does “educationally disadvantaged” mean? Are you inquiring about learning disabilities? A high school with a high dropout rate? Etc.</p>
<p>On many law school apps, I have seen Ed. Dis. as meaning “first person to graduate from HS/College in your immediate family.”</p>
<p>Explain to me how you equate “educationally disadvantaged” with being the first person in your family to graduate from high school/college in your family? I imagine that educationally disadvantaged means that, for example, you went to an inner city high school where there were no guidance counselors, no AP tests and limited opportunities to do anything but show up for class and graduate. That kind of experience does not necessarily correlate with having one or both parents who didn’t graduate from high school or college. Plenty of people without college educations (particularly from years back, when college educations weren’t as necessary as they are today) are middle class, upper middle class and wealthy, so why should there be an advantage there?</p>
<p>Let’s think about this. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. Assuming that his wife, Melinda, failed to graduate as well, should his children somehow get to claim that they have been educationally disadvantaged?</p>
<p>If your background has presented you in particular with certain challenges that you have successfully overcome, by all means, discuss them in your personal statement. Otherwise, any generalized “educational disadvantage” will likely not provide you with too much of a leg up in law school admissions.</p>
<p>Melinda Gates is a Duke grad. 
She just bought us a new science building.</p>
<p>Just stating an assumption to make a point …</p>
<p>Being the first in your family is usually a small edge because many top colleges are liberal and like to see themselves as mediators of upward social mobility. Of course such a statistic can be easily manipulated, like many of the other intangibles used as a metric for affirmative action.</p>
<p>Straight from the UCLA website: </p>
<p>UCLA’s LABI Program
defines the term as follows; " The term ‘educationally disadvantaged’
refes to both educational and social disadvantage, such as coming from
a low-income family, attending a school with a limited college
preparatory curriculum (as you mentioned Sally), being the first generation in one’s family to
attend college and residing in a community with low college-going
rates."</p>
<p>Now whether its just the LABI program at UCLA that defines it like this or the rest of the university as well is another story. However, I would imagine that the two are very similar (then again, maybe I’m wrong).</p>
<p>Well, if you read the last of UCLA’s statement, you could interpret it to mean that you must be both the first to go to college in your family AND live in an area with low college-attendance rates, which would presumably preclude the Gates children.</p>
<p>As with anything, there are always exceptions. Perhaps with some of these things, including parental occupation (which is often required) fills in the gaps. “CEO of Microsoft” doesn’t give the same impression as “Construction worker.” </p>
<p>I say include it. Worst that will happen is they ignore it. Some schools specifically ask for such information - those are the ones that, generally, will give you the largest boost.</p>