“Hook”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:field hockey is not a rich kid sport. We had a team at my high school which was the lowest income high school in the state.

there are very few rec field hockey teams for young kids. Learning and playing at a level to get recruited is a rich kid thing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably the biggest hook is being a faculty kid.

I don't think that is true, and not a hook at all schools.

Athletic recruit is easily the biggest hook.

While true, it’s much harder to be a world class athlete than a good student.

Nope. For HYPS, you can lie and say that your kid is a "great athlete" even if they suck. Not only that, you can say your parents attended HYPS, even if they didn't. Happening right now in close in NOVA, for real, sadly. Make a couple mil donation, and done and done.

Legacy is a hook but only if you have the stats to place you in the ranges of the accepted kids. Outside of that, legacy does not help ---- absent very large donations or the 10th generation to attend harvard.

it can be a very large hook if it's multiple generations with very active participation (no school will not admit a board member's kid)

[Anonymous]

Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

You has a sad! So many bad feels!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

Can you back up your statement with data? Citation? Where do you get your information?

[Anonymous]

Is being a really talented musician (for ex., international accomplishment) technically a "hook" or are applicants now just expected to all have some amazing talent as a result of concerted cultivation parenting? I feel like you can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting some concertmaster or another squarely in the face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

Can you back up your statement with data? Citation? Where do you get your information?

"A Crimson analysis of the previously confidential dataset — which spans admissions cycles starting with the Class of 2000 and ends with the cycle for the Class of 2017 — revealed that Asian-Americans admitted to Harvard earned an average SAT score of 767 across all sections. Every section of the SAT has a maximum score of 800.

By comparison, white admits earned an average score of 745 across all sections, Hispanic-American admits earned an average of 718, Native-American and Native-Hawaiian admits an average of 712, and African-American admits an average of 704."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american-admit-sat-scores/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

Can you back up your statement with data? Citation? Where do you get your information?

"A Crimson analysis of the previously confidential dataset — which spans admissions cycles starting with the Class of 2000 and ends with the cycle for the Class of 2017 — revealed that Asian-Americans admitted to Harvard earned an average SAT score of 767 across all sections. Every section of the SAT has a maximum score of 800.

By comparison, white admits earned an average score of 745 across all sections, Hispanic-American admits earned an average of 718, Native-American and Native-Hawaiian admits an average of 712, and African-American admits an average of 704."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american-admit-sat-scores/

The article only discusses SAT scores. It says nothing about being a “social justice activist” or having “ideological homogeneity”. Try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably the biggest hook is being a faculty kid.

I don't think that is true, and not a hook at all schools.

Athletic recruit is easily the biggest hook.

While true, it’s much harder to be a world class athlete than a good student.

Nope. For HYPS, you can lie and say that your kid is a "great athlete" even if they suck. Not only that, you can say your parents attended HYPS, even if they didn't. Happening right now in close in NOVA, for real, sadly. Make a couple mil donation, and done and done.

Athletes don’t get admissions hooks based on anything they list in the application. Outside the Varsity Blues scenario, coaches drive the process by recruiting athletes they think will help the team. If the coach has pull at the school and the kid meets the academic minimums the school sets for athletes, the kid will be admitted regardless of how they described their level on the application (or regardless of almost anything they put in the application as long as they make a half-way decent effort to fill it out). A kid who is not recruited by a coach will get no special credit for playing a sport even if he was, or claims to have been, the captain of a championship winning team. That will count as a decent EC but in no way push the kid into a different admissions box.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being Malala or Greta Thunberg is a hook

Greta Thunberg is cringeworthy bordering on child abuse. That’s one tiger parenting right there.

And yet she is changing the world and you had to wipe off cheetos to type that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

Can you back up your statement with data? Citation? Where do you get your information?

"A Crimson analysis of the previously confidential dataset — which spans admissions cycles starting with the Class of 2000 and ends with the cycle for the Class of 2017 — revealed that Asian-Americans admitted to Harvard earned an average SAT score of 767 across all sections. Every section of the SAT has a maximum score of 800.

By comparison, white admits earned an average score of 745 across all sections, Hispanic-American admits earned an average of 718, Native-American and Native-Hawaiian admits an average of 712, and African-American admits an average of 704."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american-admit-sat-scores/

The article only discusses SAT scores. It says nothing about being a “social justice activist” or having “ideological homogeneity”. Try again.

it says a lot about the value of being a URM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably the biggest hook is being a faculty kid.

I don't think that is true, and not a hook at all schools.

Athletic recruit is easily the biggest hook.

While true, it’s much harder to be a world class athlete than a good student.

Nope. For HYPS, you can lie and say that your kid is a "great athlete" even if they suck. Not only that, you can say your parents attended HYPS, even if they didn't. Happening right now in close in NOVA, for real, sadly. Make a couple mil donation, and done and done.

Athletes don’t get admissions hooks based on anything they list in the application. Outside the Varsity Blues scenario, coaches drive the process by recruiting athletes they think will help the team. If the coach has pull at the school and the kid meets the academic minimums the school sets for athletes, the kid will be admitted regardless of how they described their level on the application (or regardless of almost anything they put in the application as long as they make a half-way decent effort to fill it out). A kid who is not recruited by a coach will get no special credit for playing a sport even if he was, or claims to have been, the captain of a championship winning team. That will count as a decent EC but in no way push the kid into a different admissions box.

Unless the mom and people close to the coach go to the same country club. And yes, I have seen people make a (very) generous donation to HYPS, as a mediocre/not great athlete, and get in - most certainly not by academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

You has a sad! So many bad feels!

PP has a point, though. First generation counts for a lot more now than it used to!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being URM, first gen, or a vocal social justice activist will add at least 200 points to your SAT. All the stuff that used to matter, like extracurricular involvement and varsity athletics, only counts in borderline cases now. It's all about cosmetic diversity but ideological homogeneity.

You has a sad! So many bad feels!

PP has a point, though. First generation counts for a lot more now than it used to!

That wasn't the part the sarcastic response was intended to address. It was directed at the snowflake-y parts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:field hockey is not a rich kid sport. We had a team at my high school which was the lowest income high school in the state.

there are very few rec field hockey teams for young kids. Learning and playing at a level to get recruited is a rich kid thing

This is definitely true. I live in an area where high school field hockey is pretty popular. I have been looking for a rec league for my elementary aged daughter, who loved playing it a little at summer camp, and there is nothing. There is only one league she could join that's about an hour away, which is too much of a commitment for us several times a week with games and practices. Boo.