My school is really poor and underfunded (probably the poorest in our district). And so many of the students qualify for free lunch that the state or something just gives everyone in our school free lunch. I wanted to talk about this in some of the supplements or short answers for some colleges and show how that impacted me. I was wondering if this was a bad idea because the colleges might discredit my gpa and accomplishments (leadership in clubs, etc) at my school since being poor usually correlates to performing bad in school. I was thinking that would be a disadvantage, but I think I would gain an advantage because my scores on standardized testing and ap tests might seem more impressive, but I don’t know if this is enough to counter the first notion.
I don’t understand how schools will discredit your GPA and your accomplishments if evidence shows that you’re going against the misconception that poverty and performing badly in school go together. I think as long as you don’t turn it into a sob story / excuse and truly explain how it impacted you, it will be fine.