<p>Speech and debate. I have done that activity for more than five years, won three fist places at some prestigious tournaments, second place twice, multiple speaker awards.</p>
<p>Well, learning three other languages definitely was my choice.<br>
I’ve been learning Chinese for four years, Spanish for another four, and I learned English when I moved to America in third grade.</p>
<p>Oh, for an activity I’m passionate about, I’ve been swimming competitively for six years. Not Olympic level or anything, but I’m still decent.</p>
<p>I’ve been volunteering and going on mission trips since I was five years old. So like, nine years. In total, I’ve been to four countries on mission trips, and I have a lot of hours for volunteering at my church’s homeless shelter.</p>
<p>Mrnephew with all due respect, I hope you have something more than speech and debate. The last time I reviewed the Andover new class profile- speech and debate was not a category mentioned. You are a reapplicant to Andover?</p>
<p>Matadorean- what is your native tongue? Language and swimming are definitely things that can move you along in the admission process. Most of the top tier schools work very hard to keep a wide variety of languages available so your skill would be appreciated. Did you complete a prospective athlete form so the swimming coach can be made aware of your talent?</p>
<p>The AO at Andover told me that they had a speech and debate club. I’ve also been doing MUN for a while and Mock Trial as well.</p>
<p>I’ve also been learning some new languages, Chinese for four years, Spanish for two.</p>
<p>Andover is a great school, but it’s not my first choice. I’d rather go to Lawrenceville, that’s my first.</p>
<p>Oh, and yes, Andover was the only school I applied to last year, because it had a February 1st deadline, and I started the entire process very very late.</p>
<p>Well, the first language I learned growing up was Korean. Then I spent some time in China, Japan, and Russia before I moved here to the States when I was seven. I picked up English very quickly, and since I’ve been living here for around six years, I’m more comfortable in it than Korean.</p>
<p>And @mrnephew, Andover DOES have a debate club.<br>
Quoting Wikipedia:</p>
<p>The Philomathean Society is the oldest high school debate society in the nation…</p>
<p>Andover does have the oldest debate society but they don’t recruit debaters, they develop debaters. They also have the oldest secondary school newspaper and they don’t recruit writers for the paper. So neither would be considered hooks.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure it is a “hook”, depending on what your definition of a “hook” is. You asked about something that I have been doing for more than a year that would set me apart from other people. That’s one of them.</p>
<p>we will see come March 10. I wouldn’t bet the farm on debate being a hook.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t either. But it still should be something that counts toward my application. And it’s not my only EC activity of over four years either.</p>
<p>Since you would rather go to Lawrenceville, I guess it really doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your acceptance! (This is intended for the original poster of this thread.)</p>