<p>I'm going to gently disagree with stele32 here (and with the others who have posted similar comments), because the specific examples given of EC accomplishments are darn near ROUTINE in Harvard's applicant pool, and they don't have the stand-out value for a Harvard application that they might have for an application to another school. Many other threads have shown that having "lots of ECs" is usually a losing admissions strategy at Harvard. Much better is to take a particular EC or two to a very high level. That's not a "hook" so much as it's almost a threshold requirement for admission at Harvard.</p>