<p>from #5: recruited athlete, under-represented minority, legacy, development admit</p>
<p>A development “hook” means the student’s family has tons of $$$ and is looking to find a school that would like their $10,000,000 donation.</p>
<p>Being a model as a hook: use it in your essay, but don’t seem coy. (“oh, it’s so difficult to have people see the real me inside” crap). try something more like a humorous slant on what it’s like to be six-feet-tall</p>
<p>Another hook: being a celebrity.</p>
<p>what about first-generation, nonURM?</p>
<p>^ I second that question</p>
<p>and what about low-income?</p>
<p>Being the child of a famous person. Like George Bush, etc.</p>
<p>My hook is that I am Hispanic :)</p>
<p>From what I’ve gathered, things like low-income, first generation are not so much “hooks” as they are “tips”. They don’t have as much weight as hooks do but they are considered and could be the difference between an acceptance and a rejection (although not a swinging factor, by all means).</p>
<p>^^^Correct.</p>
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<p>I knew a few high-level beauty pageant contestants who attended top-10 US universities. The ones from pageants of less than national scope (typically ethnic or state-level contests) were bright and of comparable academic level to the students at their schools, but basically ordinary students; good-looking teenagers with high grades who entered pageants looking for scholarship money or as another “extracurricular activity”.</p>
<p>However, the women who had won (or ranked highly in) major national or international pageants were an entirely different type of creature. To my surprise, all that blather about “poise” and “confidence” that is nattered about at the beauty contests actually seems to exist and makes a big difference, at least when combined with high intelligence. It is easy to imagine how charisma of that kind can impress interviewers or recommenders; these women seemed personally exceptional in ways that were distinct from physical appearance or intellectual ability.</p>
<p>None of the pageant winners were necessarily the best looking women on campus, either. Most attractive women don’t enter beauty contests or become models.</p>
<p>There are hooks, and there are low level hooks called “tips”. They can help you in SOME cases at SOME colleges, whereas hooks will matter at almost all colleges.</p>
<p>Hooks:
under-represented minority, developmental admit, recruited athlete, legacy</p>
<p>Tips:
first-generation, low-income, geography (under-represented state)</p>
<p>ECs are not hooks or tips. They are awards, honors, and just plain (but maybe cool) ECs. Hooks and tips are generally invariable traits. Certainly having a unique and involved EC is going to help you, just as a great essay or a 4.0 will probably help you - but that doesn’t make it something that makes your adcom look at your application twice. If two models of a similar caliber come head to head and one of them is a Hispanic first-generation college student from Iowa, even if their applications are otherwise identical, the second application is going to be accepted. Now I’m not saying that’s how admissions work (you’re not going head to head against just one person), but that’s the gist of it.</p>
<p>should the ability to pay full tuition at a school that is need aware for internationals be considered a minor hook or no.</p>
<p>I like this definition of a hook - if you’re asking whether or not it’s a hook, then it probably isn’t one.</p>
<p>lol that still doesn’t quite answer my question… is not needing any aid for an international a hook or even a minor one?</p>
<p>Probably not. Most internationals don’t get financial aid whether they need it or not, so I can’t imagine how that could help you.</p>