"Hooks"

Applying to College
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<p>From what I've seen on College Confidential thus far, in order to get into an Ivy League school or a school of equal caliber in terms of admissions (Stanford, MIT, etc.), every applicant needs a "hook".Correct me if I'm wrong, but I take to be something such as a compelling life story or some sort of extracurricular activity that catches the attention of the admissions officer. Anyone who asks for their chances and displays a "common" set of extracurriculars, such as the "standard varsity sport" and a few clubs with a possible presidency, is given a big fat "reject" by the people of CC. However, I think that this judgment is quite misguided. I recently posted in the College Chances forum, where I listed my academic profile (~3.8/3.9 GPA & 2350 SAT) and a list of ECs that I have committed a great deal of time to, including a three season commitment to Track & Field/Cross Country, in which I am an All-State level athlete and am captain of a state championship cross country team. However, I was told that I had "below average extracurriculars" and lacked the almighty "hook" needed to get into the top colleges in the nation. I highly doubt there are so many applicants to Ivy-type schools with "hooks" that are more impressive than what I listed for myself that it is necessary to have one in order to get in. </p>

<p>So please, CCers, can you help to provide more constructive criticism as opposed to trying to discourage college hopefuls by telling them that they'll be rejected because they don't have some stupid hook. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Wrong. You need to spend more time on this forum reading substantive posts by informed members and stay off of the Chances forum.</p>

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<p>The colleges you listed are among the most selective colleges in the world. Unless there’s a very good reason for you to be accepted over literally 95% of the other applicants (not necessarily a hook), you most likely won’t be.
A lot of people commit a lot of time to a lot of things, especially sports. A lot of people win a lot of awards. A lot of people have high SAT scores. A lot of people have a 3.8 GPA. A lot of people are valedictorians. And these people will be accepted by (and probably given substantial merit aid for) a lot of awesome colleges - but most of them will not get into Harvard, Stanford, or MIT because of how absurdly selective those institutions are.</p>

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<p>We can start off by using raw numbers.</p>

<p>There are 37,000 high schools in the US and 4 million students graduating per year. Since some schools have many valedictorians, their numbers would be 40,000+, more than the number of seats for the combined entering class of the Ivies+SMC. </p>

<p>In addition, 300 students get perfect SAT scores, and 2000-3000 get 2350+, and there are tens of popular sports (football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, track, lacrosse, etc) so the number of recruitable athletes to the top schools would be in the thousands. </p>

<p>How about Harvard’s entering class? Only 1500-2000, and a good number are international students, legacies of powerful alumni, and top URMs. HYPS total entering freshmen is less than 8,000, or 0.2% of all high school graduates in the US (lets not count int’l students).</p>

<p>The bottom line is, college admission has gotten more selective each year. Harvard does not admit that much more in terms of absolute numbers than 25 years ago, but the number of superb candidates has exploded. Harvard used to admit around 20% in 1990, the same percent as UCLA/Cal today. </p>

<p>The bottom line is, an unhooked top high school student can only expect to make it to the top state schools (Cal, UCLA, UNCCH, U of M, UVa), each of which is vastly bigger than any member of HYPSMC.</p>

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<p>“Hooks” are mostly demographic characteristics that make you desirable in the college’s eyes, such as alumni legacy, donor legacy, college-desired race/ethnicity, celebrity, etc… The main “hook” that is related to your own achievement is being a recruited athlete (if they are not recruiting you to play on the intercollegiate sports teams, then it is just a nice extracurricular, not a “hook”).</p>

<p>While “hooks” improve your chance of admission at super-selective schools, they are not a guarantee, and some applicants without “hooks” are admitted (but with a lower chance of admission than those with “hooks”).</p>

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<p>Bubbles, let’s look past those numbers you listed. Out those 40,000+ valedictorians (this number is likely inaccurate due to the fact that a number of schools, including mine, don’t rank), how many come from a school where that is a major accomplishment? Probably somewhere around a quarter, as not all schools are created equal. So that brings the number down to about 10,000. Now how many of these valedictorians also get SAT/ACT scores in the 99th percentile? There are approximately 15,000 people in total who score in the 99th percentile in total each year. Not every valedictorian is necessarily one of those people, so that number could be cut down to about 8,000. Now out of those 8,000, there are definitely a few that will not be applying to some of the top schools due to financial issues (although there are great financial aid programs, this is still seen as a daunting issue by many applicants). So the number of truly top-level students academically is somewhere around 7500 students. </p>

<p>Now let’s look at athletics. College teams have an average of about 20 athletes (some sports are bigger, some are smaller). There are about 35-40 Varsity sports, men & women, at most schools. That’s 700-800 athletes, a quarter of which would be coming from the freshman class, so 175-200 incoming freshman athletes, 50% of which are going to be recruited athletes, so let’s say about 100. That leaves 75-100 spots on varsity sports that need to be filled. This is where the coach bump works in for those high level academic students that are capable of competing on a college team. This bump is about the same level as a recommendation from a music teacher for an extremely talented musician or a professor recommendation for a student that took a summer class with them. However, people who are just given a bump by the coach aren’t classified officially as recruits, but there chances are increased significantly, more so than just a “nice EC”. </p>

<p>I might be a little misguided because I come from a high school that is focused around student-athletes and we have had many kids in the situation I described that got accepted based on a combination of academics and athletics. But, I still wouldn’t discount the role that athletics plays in the admissions process, as athletics are a big part of any school and they have a lot of influence.</p>