I was a first gen college student not too long ago at an elite college. It was tough to figure it out on your own, while surrounded by many wealthy and/or highly accomplished students, when you don't what you don't know. Totally worth it in the long-run, but schools could do a little more to support such students with programs that don't make any assumptions about your background or ethnicity. I could have used more advisors and peers to talk to that were going through the same thing. In my high school, no one visited the teachers for help so it never occurred to me to do the same when I had a class or two that I struggled with. I met with my advisor once and never again, dropping my science major because I was floundering. Learned later that most of my classmates had taken the same class in high school, including using the same text book, so it was so much easier for them as they were basically repeating a class that I was taking for the first time. College is such a game these days; both the getting in and the experience itself. The fact that most elite college students are majority high income should tell you all you need to know. Admissions committees primarily value students that have the luxuries of participating in expensive sports, private schools, and test/admission prep. Many of these kids didn't get there on their own. They were led, supported, pampered, financed, and yes did a lot of work to get there.