Do You Really Need a "Hook" to Get Into a Top School Nowadays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People keep saying that TO made admission much harder. If that's the case for some students, it must be much easier for other students. Colleges still need to fill the same amount of spots. It's always hard to get in the top ones, but it's questionable now is much harder than before.

Math must not be your thing. Applications are going up at each school 15 to 20 percent per year for the past two years. That means there are way more students competing for the same number of spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm seeing that the definition of "hook" might vary.

-Top grades
-Top scores
-Awards
-Leadership
-Volunteer
-Strong eval teachers / alum
-URM / UR rural area

Only the last is a hook.

Some awards could be hooks. Like winning a major science fair, being a Coca-Cola Scholar, etc.

That’s an accomplishment, not a hook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People keep saying that TO made admission much harder. If that's the case for some students, it must be much easier for other students. Colleges still need to fill the same amount of spots. It's always hard to get in the top ones, but it's questionable now is much harder than before.

TO opened the door wider to more applicants. It's a numbers game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm seeing that the definition of "hook" might vary.

-Top grades
-Top scores
-Awards
-Leadership
-Volunteer
-Strong eval teachers / alum
-URM / UR rural area

Only the last is a hook.

Some awards could be hooks. Like winning a major science fair, being a Coca-Cola Scholar, etc.

That’s an accomplishment, not a hook.

+1 other than athletics, the "hooks" are all things that the applicant had no hand in; they are not accomplishments performed by the applicant: race, who your parents are, 1st gen

[Anonymous]

No, you don't need a hook. You need to be very good and have a little luck on your side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dd got into HYP in 2020 with no hooks (yes, I know, pre-TO). We are in New England and admissions pretty much as tough here as anywhere. Directly and indirectly I have known a number of kids over the years who got in to the most competitive schools without being URM/first gen or athletes, I don't know about their legacy status. But what these kids all had in common was they really dug in to their own education and actively sought out opportunities to grow and contribute, they were all kids excited about learning and whatever their activities were it showed in the application I imagine. That's not a guarantee for a spot at a reachy-reach school, plenty of equally awesome kids with nearly identical apps probably didn't get in. But it's certainly possible.

Concur. This tracks with my personal knowledge of kids and admitted in 2022 to: Stanford, Brown, Vandy, Columbia, Cornell with ZERO hooks from DC’s private. (I don’t consider full-pay a hook; it’s an advantage yes but those kids don’t go into the separate consideration bucket first)

Anyway, these 2022 kids are as PP described. It’s not about the stats, guys

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, you don't need a hook. You need to be very good and have a little luck on your side.

Agree. And “very good” is not synonymous with 4.0 and 1600 SAT—I think that’s actually what’s causing people to go crazy and assume you can’t get in unhooked. “Very good” increasingly seems synonymous with “special,” meaning distinct/appealing in the combination of attributes an applicant brings—leadership, intellectual acumen, curiosity, engagement, work ethic, ability to make a meaningful contribution to the campus community, etc.

[Anonymous]

The top 25 or so schools mostly are uninterested in filling their classes with straight, white UMC students. Instead, they fill their classes with URMs, first generation students, immigrants and children of immigrants, openly queer, some international students, and athletes necessary to field their teams. Then they fill any remaining spots with the UMC straight white kids. Which means there aren’t a whole lot of spots left, and likelihood of getting in is pretty low. But still possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People keep saying that TO made admission much harder. If that's the case for some students, it must be much easier for other students. Colleges still need to fill the same amount of spots. It's always hard to get in the top ones, but it's questionable now is much harder than before.

Math must not be your thing. Applications are going up at each school 15 to 20 percent per year for the past two years. That means there are way more students competing for the same number of spots.

Your first sentence is totally unnecessary and offers no relevant information to the topic. People are applying more, thus the lower acceptance rate at a particular school. But statistically speaking, since people are applying more, the chance to get in ONE of the schools of similar level should be similar as before. Unless students who had little chance in the past have much better chance now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top 25 or so schools mostly are uninterested in filling their classes with straight, white UMC students. Instead, they fill their classes with URMs, first generation students, immigrants and children of immigrants, openly queer, some international students, and athletes necessary to field their teams. Then they fill any remaining spots with the UMC straight white kids. Which means there aren’t a whole lot of spots left, and likelihood of getting in is pretty low. But still possible.

Or, put another way, they are interested in building diverse university communities that look like the country we live in. And even with that approach, UMC straight white people are still overrepresented!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People keep saying that TO made admission much harder. If that's the case for some students, it must be much easier for other students. Colleges still need to fill the same amount of spots. It's always hard to get in the top ones, but it's questionable now is much harder than before.

Math must not be your thing. Applications are going up at each school 15 to 20 percent per year for the past two years. That means there are way more students competing for the same number of spots.

Your first sentence is totally unnecessary and offers no relevant information to the topic. People are applying more, thus the lower acceptance rate at a particular school. But statistically speaking, since people are applying more, the chance to get in ONE of the schools of similar level should be similar as before. Unless students who had little chance in the past have much better chance now.

Clearly true

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top 25 or so schools mostly are uninterested in filling their classes with straight, white UMC students. Instead, they fill their classes with URMs, first generation students, immigrants and children of immigrants, openly queer, some international students, and athletes necessary to field their teams. Then they fill any remaining spots with the UMC straight white kids. Which means there aren’t a whole lot of spots left, and likelihood of getting in is pretty low. But still possible.

Or, put another way, they are interested in building diverse university communities that look like the country we live in. And even with that approach, UMC straight white people are still overrepresented!

Not PP but elite schools are not building classes to look like the country we live in. I am not complaining but please be clear. Top schools are much more diverse that the US is. Now the numbers do not reflect the right mix but they are way more diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd got into HYP in 2020 with no hooks (yes, I know, pre-TO). We are in New England and admissions pretty much as tough here as anywhere. Directly and indirectly I have known a number of kids over the years who got in to the most competitive schools without being URM/first gen or athletes, I don't know about their legacy status. But what these kids all had in common was they really dug in to their own education and actively sought out opportunities to grow and contribute, they were all kids excited about learning and whatever their activities were it showed in the application I imagine. That's not a guarantee for a spot at a reachy-reach school, plenty of equally awesome kids with nearly identical apps probably didn't get in. But it's certainly possible.

Totally irrelevant in the TO world.

yeah it's not though. this school's acceptance in rate in last 4 years has gone from 5.91 to 4.46%, a very small change certainly reflective of increased number of applications (TO). It's still nearly impossible to get in, as it always has been. But that doesn't mean that it was previously about "the stats" and now suddenly it's about other things. My kid's stats, for example, were definitely not perfect. They were great, but that's not what got her in. And the other kids I can think of over the years have also not been the perfect stats kids, often not the valedictorians, who have gotten in to the schools with the toughest admissions numbers. you need to understand how holistic admissions works, it has its critics and I get the arguments. but it has always and will continue to give schools the ability to build a class based on a lot of intangibles. so you can think of the stats as the "first round", but a perfect stats kid who doesn't get in to a top school didn't miss out because they didn't have a hook, they just may not have had whatever combination of all the other stuff that spoke to the adcom committee that day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top 25 or so schools mostly are uninterested in filling their classes with straight, white UMC students. Instead, they fill their classes with URMs, first generation students, immigrants and children of immigrants, openly queer, some international students, and athletes necessary to field their teams. Then they fill any remaining spots with the UMC straight white kids. Which means there aren’t a whole lot of spots left, and likelihood of getting in is pretty low. But still possible.

Yet straight white Umc kids are still the most prevalent group on any top 25 campus. Go figure

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd got into HYP in 2020 with no hooks (yes, I know, pre-TO). We are in New England and admissions pretty much as tough here as anywhere. Directly and indirectly I have known a number of kids over the years who got in to the most competitive schools without being URM/first gen or athletes, I don't know about their legacy status. But what these kids all had in common was they really dug in to their own education and actively sought out opportunities to grow and contribute, they were all kids excited about learning and whatever their activities were it showed in the application I imagine. That's not a guarantee for a spot at a reachy-reach school, plenty of equally awesome kids with nearly identical apps probably didn't get in. But it's certainly possible.

Totally irrelevant in the TO world.

yeah it's not though. this school's acceptance in rate in last 4 years has gone from 5.91 to 4.46%, a very small change certainly reflective of increased number of applications (TO). It's still nearly impossible to get in, as it always has been. But that doesn't mean that it was previously about "the stats" and now suddenly it's about other things. My kid's stats, for example, were definitely not perfect. They were great, but that's not what got her in. And the other kids I can think of over the years have also not been the perfect stats kids, often not the valedictorians, who have gotten in to the schools with the toughest admissions numbers. you need to understand how holistic admissions works, it has its critics and I get the arguments. but it has always and will continue to give schools the ability to build a class based on a lot of intangibles. so you can think of the stats as the "first round", but a perfect stats kid who doesn't get in to a top school didn't miss out because they didn't have a hook, they just may not have had whatever combination of all the other stuff that spoke to the adcom committee that day.

Institutional priorities have also changed significantly.