hooks

Parent Cafe
6

<p>A hook, in admissions speak, is any additional advantage that makes a candidate attractive to a particular college. This will vary from school to school and from year to year. </p>

<p>Some candidates may try to hide their hooks, preferring to be admitted on only merit (parents tend to discourage this) while others will fight furiously to exploit even the most inconsequential connections. Such hooks may include athletic ability, minority status, veteran status, alumni connections, special talent (e.g., art, music, theater, writing, etc.), under represented socioeconomic background (e.g., first-generation college), geography, gender, VIP status, ability to pay full tuition, or miscellaneous institutional needs.</p>

<p>Having a hook can give a candidate a higher rating from the get-go or can pull an application from the deny pile and put it into the admit (or wait list) stack. Hooks come into play most often when judging equally qualified candidates.</p>

<p>For example, if a college has to select one of two students who look the same on paper, and one is the daughter of an alumnus and the other is not, the daughter is probably going to get in over the non-connected student.</p>

<p>However, no matter how well connected or how gifted a student is outside of the classroom, if he doesn’t have the grades or the ability, he won’t—or shouldn’t—be admitted. And, if he does get admitted for special reasons, those connections won’t guarantee that he will succeed. One college even had to turn down its own president’s son!</p>

<p>The hooks below are the ones discussed most often—and most passionately —in admission committee meetings:</p>

<p>Alumni Connections
Athletes
Students of Color
Talent in the Arts
Legacies (at some schools this is only a hook when applying ED)
Facbrats</p>

<p>[n]The Invisible Hook—Institutional Need/mission**</p>

<p>One reason that an applicant is admitted to a particular college while a similar- seeming (or even less able) applicant is not can be due to a fuzzy factor known as “institutional needs.” These needs, are likely to vary from college to college, and—even within a single school—from year to year. One season an institution may be after more women, Midwesterners, or hockey goalies; the next time around it could be scientists or string musicians. Applicants do not have control over these needs and are rarely aware of them. </p>

<p>here are a couple of threads that can help you out</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/373513-nyc-moms-dads-possible-get-into-hyp-nyc-without-hook-2.html#post4479608[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/373513-nyc-moms-dads-possible-get-into-hyp-nyc-without-hook-2.html#post4479608&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/376940-hooks-what-exactly-they.html#post4510781[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/376940-hooks-what-exactly-they.html#post4510781&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;