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

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm seeing that the definition of "hook" might vary.

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

The bolded aren't hooks.[/quote]
Are awards even considered a hook?  Recruited athlete, legacy and URM. [/quote]

Why not? If you win Regeneron STS or something that definitely grabs the attention of admissions teams.[/quote]
No doubt national award would have a positive affect on an application. I just always considered a hook to be a talent, trait or characteristic (forgot geography too). Honest question, will an award get you admitted over a perceived stronger candidate?  IDK. [/quote]

Maybe, but remembering the post about Coca-Cola Scholars and where they go to college, the correlation is so strong for these top-tier awards that it almost feels like a hook:

[img]https://i.imgur.com/Z5DSn0h.png[/img][/quote]

I believe there is a significant overlap between Coca-Cola scholars and some of the many merit scholarships at Duke, especially the Robertson Scholars program (which is full scholarship for 4 years) which rewards the same things the Coca-Cola scholarship does (merit/leadership/community service).  [/quote]

That's speculation unless you have actual data for it. Yale, UPenn, Columbia, etc. offer scholarships too. I think from what I've seen Harvard is #1 for Coca-Cola Scholars by a wide margin, as would be expected.[/quote]

No, the ivy league does not award any merit, talent, or athletic scholarships. [/quote]

They do have merit scholarships though. They keep it on the down low, but they have many. Yale has scholarships like Hahn and YES scholarships. Columbia has scholarships like Egleston and Kluge scholarships. UPenn has scholarships like Ben Franklin and Vagelos scholarships. The only schools with no scholarships of any form are HPSM.[/quote]

Thise are not merit scholarships,  they are research funding for current students.  These schools do not offer merit scholarships for applicants. [/quote]

Nope you're wrong. These are scholarships offered to [i]admitted[/i] students to entice them to enroll. It's a recruiting tactic that generally comes with ample perks and funding throughout the 4 years at any school. Mostly they exist for schools to compete with HPSM.[/quote]

The first one I checked, Vagelos, says applications are due Oct 23, after the school year starts, so I assume all the rest of the comment is lies too.

https://curf.upenn.edu/content/vagelos-undergraduate-research-grant[/quote]

"UPenn offers select admitted students merit scholarships through Ben Franklin Scholars, Joseph Wharton Scholars, University Scholars, Penn World Scholars, Civic Scholars, Rachleff Scholars, Public Policy Research Scholars, ISP Scholars, etc. along with multiple dual degree programs such as Huntsman, Jerome Fisher M&T, Vagelos LSM, NETS, VIPER, etc."[/quote]

This quote seems made up. Where is it from? I find Penn referring to itself as Penn (not UPenn) in web lit, and they expressly say they only offer need based aid.
https://srfs.upenn.edu/financial-aid/grants-and-scholarships
Stop giving people some false hope of merit aid. Ivies don't offer merit aid. These scholars/scholarships/grants are research stipends or educational programs.[/quote]

Its confusing because the selection for these are merit-based, so technically they’re merit-based scholarships that come with acceptance for students that Penn most heavily wants to recruit. While they don’t reduce tuition, they come with many financial, research, housing, course registration, and overall academic perks that regular accepted students don’t get. It’s still a recruiting tactic because all top schools have fairly robust financial aid, so these Scholar programs and dual degree programs are a cherry on top of the already good financial aid. Out of an incoming class of 2400 students each year at Penn, ~300-400 will be enrolled through one of these scholarship programs or a dual degree program.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics