<p>Me and my friends from school were having a discussion today about having a illness/disease/disability etc and the ramifications on college applications. Some of them believe that it represents a "hook" being sort of like a minority or something and will get your admitted with much lower grades for DIVERSITY reasons. </p>
<p>I believe that such a thing would not be a hook, but a personal circumstance that could be a good essay topic and could show a certain characteristic of yourself. As for the lower grades, I feel that the person's situation will be taken into context which would result in a student with lower grades being accepted.</p>
<p>We both wondered whether a illness should have documentation to be believed because of the sick people that would fake leukemia or something to get accepted to their dream school.</p>
<p>Feel free to post your own thoughts on the discussion. =)</p>
<p>I don't think it helps much. My friend's cousin is deaf and still managed to be valedictorian of her class at a semi-competitive HS, and the best school she got into was Johns Hopkins; a hispanic girl who was the valedictorian of her class at such a high school would probably get in somewhere better (as much as I hate to say it). (And I'm not implying that JHU is bad; it's a great school, just not what my friend's cousin had hoped for.) </p>
<p>Also, I don't think having a fairly high probability of dying within the next few years is going to make you more diverse.</p>
<p>Having poor health does not constitute any sort of "hook," though how you react to your poor health may give you a rather unique and powerful perspective which could contribute greatly to your character, which in turn could contribute to you getting in.</p>
<p>So would you go so far as to say that illness makes for a decent essay topic, and nothing else? I think, depending on the person's personal circumstances, grades will be viewed in light of that illness. For example. say you are diagnosed with something in your sophomore year. Soon you spend an extended period of time in the hospital/at home and are homeschooled for that portion of time. You come back to school no where near completely healthy, and you struggle with this illness until the end of your junior year when it is finally controlled. During this time, school is probably not high on your list of priorities and your grades and overall absorbtion of knowledge suffers. I believe in this situation, the radical change in circumstance would be looked at as a reason for the grade decline. However, a student with deafness, may have had that for years, and did not miss significant extended amounts of school nor did it negatively affect the trend in their grades. Not to say that their deafness shouldnt be given extra consideration, but I think it would get less than the first student.</p>
<p>In your case, I think that the student's illness would be taken into consideration when looking at their grades. However, it's still definitely not a hook. </p>
<p>Also, my friend's cousin wasn't born deaf; she went deaf at about age 12. I don't think she wrote her essay about it, though; I think she may have included it in the extra info section. I remember her not wanting the 'pity factor' to get her into college.</p>
<p>Why give one of a limited number of seats to any student that can't take advantage of the opportunity? </p>
<p>I don't have a day of high school. This is because of a TBI and siezure disorder. I may have an interesting perspective on life but this does not make me capable of using the offerings of any university. I must work my way toward it and deal with my life. If my life is not suited to achieve my academic aspirations then I must deal with this too. </p>
<p>In short, illness/disease/disability may be reason to consider the different path a student has taken. What is important is has that path led the student to the ability to take advantage of a university's offerings?</p>
<p>"Yes, but that's not a hook, that's a mitigating circumstance."</p>
<p>Maybe i dont have the full idea of 'hooks' but i was under the impression that a hook is a aspect of an applicant that makes appealing to a school. Now, illness is not a hook, but would their experiences and outlooks etc. that stem from the illness be considered a 'hook' then? Im assuming that this idea is also true for minorities; they're not admitted because they are a certain race, but because of the variation and lifestyle differences that they bring to the table.</p>
<p>No, in many cases they're admitted because of Affirmative Action policies... so it's really because they're that race. Or at least that was my impression. For example, you could be racially Hispanic but not following any Hispanic traditions... and how would colleges know the difference?</p>
<p>Any admissions department likes to see a student sticking with it through tough times. Especially if the student's specific circumstances make getting help harder. If you have a disability you probably have to find your own ways to study and learn. Even living in the wrong nieghborhood can be as consuming from studies as all the ECs in the world.</p>
<p>la montagne(sp?) - so these Affirmative Action poilicies are purely 'you have black skin, your in' ? If thats the case, I find so many things wrong with that; something someone cannot control is giving them a disadvantage/advantage? Thats basically racism.</p>
<p>Eluhan - I totally see where your coming from. I definately believe that admissions officers probably take into high regard the fact that the student clearly never gave up in their studies, and more importantly their life. They took their experiences and made them work positively. I think that maybe a school such as MIT might take this one step further as to say that the student is able to cope with reality and has been able to bounce back from challenge; that they may not look down upon the grades but see the students ability to stay resilient, which would lead to a student with somewhat lower grades possibly being accepted.</p>
<p>with affirmative action, it depends on the school. some schools have specific quotas, like at least X% of our freshman class this year is going to be Y minority, in which case, in some sense, there could be an advantage to being Y minority. it's a touchy topic i think</p>
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Now, illness is not a hook, but would their experiences and outlooks etc. that stem from the illness be considered a 'hook' then?
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<p>A hook, as far as I can tell, is something that makes a college really want you. I'm not sure if the experiences and outlooks that stem from the illness quite qualify, but they can certainly help.</p>
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Im assuming that this idea is also true for minorities; they're not admitted because they are a certain race, but because of the variation and lifestyle differences that they bring to the table.
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How so? Can you give examples of one of these schools?
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<p>In Texas public universities, where I gather that high schools are still pretty segregated, a fixed top percentage of every high school's graduating class is guaranteed admission to at least one state public university.</p>
<p>Michigan uses a point system to rank applicants for admissions, and being a URM is worth a certain number of points (up to 20 out of a possible 150 for being a URM OR being economically disadvantaged, or any of a handful of other background factors, as opposed to 80 for high school GPA, 12 for SAT scores, and - here's an odd one for you - 16 for being from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).</p>
<p>There are many other systems, but these are a couple of examples.</p>
<p>Nice fact jessiehl, 16 points for being from the upper penninsula kind of makes sense, strictly from a policy point of view. It's geographically isolated from the state. Besides it's probably an old rule that reason to change has yet to emerge.</p>
<p>Anyway.</p>
<p>My knowledge tells me that more competative schools (JHU, CT, MIT...) are looking for a particular person. The kind of person that-as much as this can be assumed-will make a difference with their love of knowledge.
Beyond that there is the concern for the overall population. What if all the kids applying that 'seem' to be right for the opportunity are white. Is this racially motivated? Is it an economic or cultural issue? Does it matter? We need the opportunity offered by the highest-and indeed any-of our institutions to be available across the racial/economic/cultural spectrum.
Does this mean adcoms at MIT debate based on race? Probably not. But societal representation is as much an issue for admissions as experience, perspective, intellect and academics.</p>
<p>So your saying first and foremost is their personal qualities, and if say, a white and a minority are relatively the same, they will then turn to affirmative action policies?</p>
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So your saying first and foremost is their personal qualities, and if say, a white and a minority are relatively the same, they will then turn to affirmative action policies?
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<p>If they otherwise have no useful way to differentiate between applicants, then race might come into play. I could also see being slightly more lenient about the test scores of URM applicants on the basis of their scores being lowered by stereotype threat and the lesser correlation between their SAT scores and college performance, but I have no idea if anything in this sentence is used.</p>
<p>MIT also implements AA by heavy efforts on the recruitment end - that's what Bryan Nance, who writes one of the blogs, is, the Director of Minority Recruitment.</p>