Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having a special talent isn’t a hook. It’s legacy, large donor, athletic recruit, urm, first Gen, and pell eligible

Winning a contest could be considered a hook depending on which contest and the school. Even academic contests count more to some schools than others.

Having a parent who is a celebrity or a top executive at a company of interest to a school could also count. Celebrities are like free advertising and are potential large donors (as opposed to a current large donor.) Senior execs at certain companies are also potential large donors, and also potential employers of students.

Being the child of a celebrity or certain executives is definitely a big time hook. They all seem to go to Brown, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, Penn, and Duke. Notice how no one seems go to MIT or CalTech. Or New Jersey City University.

Generally, it's recruited athlete, child of faculty, legacy but less so with each passing year, big time donor kid, poor enough for a Pell Grant but smart enough to have the grades and scores, URM - specifically, black or hispanic, which is widely manipulated by everyone. It's the Puerto Rican grandmother. Or the daughter of the president of Nigeria. No one from Anacostia High School is taking your kid's spot at Harvard.

The other awards mentioned are just the basic things every applicant for competitive colleges has these days. Maybe not the Rubik's Cube world record. That's not going to fly anyway. But something that exemplifies talent and passion and discipline. Wouldn't really call that a hook. More like a requirement these days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hook as talked about on here or on any other college board is:

-legacy
-faculty kid
-athlete
-recruited athlete.

It's not to say that being the world's top Rubik's cuber or starter of 10 non-profits won't help with admissions--just that these sort of things are not "HOOKS"

Oops. Error in my post. I write athlete twice in lieu of URM.

Faculty kid is questionable - the largest flagship in the country (UC system), with probably 6 of the Top 50 schools in the country, doesn't give a rip if you have a parent bringing in millions of dollars of research revenue, and they certainly don't care about the adjunct guy teaching one class each quarter.

I don't know anything about the UC system, but I can say with 100 percent confidence that being a faculty/staff offspring gives you a thumb on the scale at Georgetown, Princeton, and Penn.

Anonymous wrote:Traditionally, in admissions world, hook refers to recruited athlete, URM, legacy, development case. Hook does not refer to interest.



OP, what you are referring to is sometimes referred to as a "spike" though there may be other terms as well.

This, op seems not to understand what a hook is.

Anonymous wrote:hook as talked about on here or on any other college board is:

-legacy
-faculty kid
-athlete
-recruited athlete.

It's not to say that being the world's top Rubik's cuber or starter of 10 non-profits won't help with admissions--just that these sort of things are not "HOOKS"

Add to this:
- Donor/development case
- Celebrity/VIP
- URM

That's it. Those are the hooks.

Banana peel - engaged

Anonymous wrote:Rodeo champion. That’s always the answer.

💯
Esp from a western state…

What if it’s an institutional priority?

To get more people into a certain academic program with declining enrollment or with a certain interest/background that it does not fall into one of these categories?
How can that not be a hook?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hook as talked about on here or on any other college board is:

-legacy
-faculty kid
-athlete
-recruited athlete.

It's not to say that being the world's top Rubik's cuber or starter of 10 non-profits won't help with admissions--just that these sort of things are not "HOOKS"

Oops. Error in my post. I write athlete twice in lieu of URM.

Faculty kid is questionable - the largest flagship in the country (UC system), with probably 6 of the Top 50 schools in the country, doesn't give a rip if you have a parent bringing in millions of dollars of research revenue, and they certainly don't care about the adjunct guy teaching one class each quarter.

Anonymous wrote:hook as talked about on here or on any other college board is:

-legacy
-faculty kid
-athlete
-recruited athlete.

It's not to say that being the world's top Rubik's cuber or starter of 10 non-profits won't help with admissions--just that these sort of things are not "HOOKS"

Oops. Error in my post. I write athlete twice in lieu of URM.

hook as talked about on here or on any other college board is:

-legacy
-faculty kid
-athlete
-recruited athlete.

It's not to say that being the world's top Rubik's cuber or starter of 10 non-profits won't help with admissions--just that these sort of things are not "HOOKS"

Anonymous wrote:Having a special talent isn’t a hook. It’s legacy, large donor, athletic recruit, urm, first Gen, and pell eligible

+1

OP, you are talking about something else, not a hook.

Anonymous wrote:Having a special talent isn’t a hook. It’s legacy, large donor, athletic recruit, urm, first Gen, and pell eligible

Marching band in some schools

Hook = something that is clear will make the school better / they can brag about.

Examples = student with strong academics + went to worlds for Irish Dance or competes in World Series of BBQ or has been elected to the local school board

I love how the breathless in here pretend that the Class of 2028 at every T20 will overflow with caricatures of the highest performer they can think of ... reminds me of a funny e-mail I received earlier this fall.

What it takes to be accepted to the following schools, if you bother listening to anyone else:

Stanford University: Reanimate the dead. Invent faster than light travel or time travel. Win the Fields Medal. Start Silicon Valley unicorn. Establish new proof of Fermat's Theorem. Become President or Vice President of the United States of America.

Ivy League: Cure cancer. Discover proof of extraterrestrial life. Win the Nobel Peace Prize. Become Head of State of a small country. Win an Oscar.

Top 20: Olympic athlete. Start a non-profit that raises a million dollars for charity. Publish original, peer-reviewed scientific research that solves a mystery of the universe. Win an Emmy.

State Flagship: Date Taylor Swift. Build an entire neighborhood by hand. Create a new element with a short half-life. Win a Grammy.

State School: Lead in school play. Varsity sports. Part-time job. Have a pulse.

It's just ... ugh ... the data is there ... it's not just kids with hooks that get into T20 schools without a 4.00 UWGPA + 20 AP exams scored at 5 + 1600/36 standardized test + multivariable calculus competed in utero. It's just not. It's unremarkable kids that go to school alongside our kids every day, and have a pretty basic, mundane existence, for the most part.

But if you listen to people, boy, I tell you ...

Rodeo champion. That’s always the answer.