Anonymous wrote:Interesting how he broke down the engineering majors in RD admit, focusing on MechE

Susan on YCBK also said MechEng is often the only Engineering major that will have room come RD.

Ok new episode: another hook = “academic diversity”:

“And still, when we see a male identifying student applying for classics or literature or something like that, we're like, oh, this is an interesting student. And especially like what you said, Susan, when it's genuine and when we see it backed up in the courses that they've chosen to take. Like when I see a male identifying student who's taking AP Latin 5 and who has a Latin teacher who's writing their recs and who's really genuinely interested in classics, that's like a, wow, a super interesting student who you definitely want to pick up.”

From Your College Bound Kid | Admission Tips, Admission Trends & Admission Interviews: Understanding How Admissions Buckets Impact Admission Decisions, Apr 9, 2026

Anonymous wrote:YCBK called all of these hooks and abbreviations = compositional diversity.

And they mentioned being male! And these are distinct from being a compelling candidate who “pops”.

This week’s podcast.

Just listened.

Agree on Susan’s “evidence” point - evidence for values, ambition, major alignment, vibe and fit to school. The evidence comes from all the pieces.

Is academic standout a hook? I thought hooks were criterion outside of academics.

YCBK called all of these hooks and abbreviations = compositional diversity.

And they mentioned being male! And these are distinct from being a compelling candidate who “pops”.

This week’s podcast.

Why is he wearing a t-shirt and sitting in front of a bed?

One more….hooks like legacy or other institutional priority can be “Velcro” and prevent a WL:

“In the school reading, when I would look at a group of, say, a dozen or even 50 applicants from the same high school, the counselor would understand that some kids with lower academic ratings were going to get in because they were being recruited for something, or they met an institutional priority.
There's no counselor that's going to argue that, even though it hurts those higher achieving kids, but who don't have, like we used to call it the velcro, to keep them in the pool when reductions had to be made. Those applications didn't stick. They would be very often on the waiting list because it was an affirmative read, an affirmative evaluation, but the acceptance decision didn't stick once we had to reduce the numbers and so we would come in on target.”

From Your College Bound Kid | Admission Tips, Admission Trends & Admission Interviews: How Can My Student Stand Out in a Competitive Admission Pool, Apr 1, 2026