Full list of what "hooks" are, please?

[Anonymous]

I really would like a more comprehensive understanding of what a hook can entail.

Does being a foreign national who is also legal resident in the USA count?

[Anonymous]

Being recruited for a sport, being an underrepresented minority, having a unique talent or achievement, being a famous actor or a relative of one, having a parent as a faculty member of the school to which you are applying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being recruited for a sport, being an underrepresented minority, having a unique talent or achievement, being a famous actor or a relative of one, having a parent as a faculty member of the school to which you are applying

Thanks.

Any more? And what is a unique talent, given there are so many kids learning string instruments these days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being recruited for a sport, being an underrepresented minority, having a unique talent or achievement, being a famous actor or a relative of one, having a parent as a faculty member of the school to which you are applying

Thanks.

Any more? And what is a unique talent, given there are so many kids learning string instruments these days?

The obvious one is having a parent that attended. Unique talent is something that is performed at a national/world level.

[Anonymous]

- URMs (blacks, Latinos)
- Gender (girls applying to engineering school, for example)
legacy
- sports (Olympians for example)
- in some cases, which state you are applying from
- big donor's kids

[Anonymous]

Listen, if the college orchestra needs more viola players, then yes it's a hook.

[Anonymous]

What about kids who qualify to compete at Nationals for DECA? Is that meaningful, or just okay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about kids who qualify to compete at Nationals for DECA? Is that meaningful, or just okay?

That is not a hook.

[Anonymous]

A hook is a "need" the college has. An athlete, URM, legacy, viola players, female engineers to balance out the majority males in the e-school. If you think of it that way, it's easy. And no, DECA Nationals is not a hook.

[Anonymous]

Being the child of a US president.

[Anonymous]

Here's how it works.

If someone else's child gets in because of an experience they've had, or an achievement, it's a "Hook".

If your child gets in, it's because they deserve it.

So, for example, on websites populated by mostly white affluent parents, getting in with high test scores (on tests that have been shown over and over again to be biased towards white affluent students) is not a "hook". Similarly, if the school decides they want lacrosse players, or kids who demonstrated leadership by being "president" of a club of some sort, that's not a "hook". Or if a kid happens to live in the kind of neighborhood where the schools offer a gazillion AP's, and thus has taken a gazillion AP's, that's not a "hook". All those students absolutely deserve to be there.

On the other hand, if a school decides they value the experience of overcoming poverty, or racism (things that are much harder to do than playing lacrosse because Daddy signed you up for lessons when you were 6), those kids are only there because they have a "Hook".

[Anonymous]

I've never understood how a hook can be either something that a kid works really really hard at (like making the Olympic ice hockey team or performing at Carnegie Hall) or something that a kid is born into (child of illegal immigrants, child of gay family, transgendered, etc.). I"m not sure how one is really equivalent to the other -- since the second child didn't actually do anything except be born.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's how it works.

If someone else's child gets in because of an experience they've had, or an achievement, it's a "Hook".

If your child gets in, it's because they deserve it.

So, for example, on websites populated by mostly white affluent parents, getting in with high test scores (on tests that have been shown over and over again to be biased towards white affluent students) is not a "hook". Similarly, if the school decides they want lacrosse players, or kids who demonstrated leadership by being "president" of a club of some sort, that's not a "hook". Or if a kid happens to live in the kind of neighborhood where the schools offer a gazillion AP's, and thus has taken a gazillion AP's, that's not a "hook". All those students absolutely deserve to be there.

On the other hand, if a school decides they value the experience of overcoming poverty, or racism (things that are much harder to do than playing lacrosse because Daddy signed you up for lessons when you were 6), those kids are only there because they have a "Hook".

You obviously don't understand what a hook is.

[Anonymous]

Don't think we have any hooks and are kind of freaking out.
Telling DD that she must apply ED and maybe try some women's colleges as I assume they are a little easier to get in.

[Anonymous]

Grad school of parents - does that help or does only undergrad count? Thanks