What are considered “hooks”? ECs? Legacies? How much will they help in an application that requires financial aid?
Hooks are something the school needs: an oboe player, a distance runner, water-polo recruits, any athletic recruit, those esp who will be impact players. Those from North Dakota or other similar geodiversity, maybe URM or first gen or those who get admitted through a feeder program every year for low income, maybe legacy, developmental (big donors).
At Deerfield, my daughter’s interviewer left the interview because she heard an alumnus in the hallway who was a big donor and just had to go out and pay him respect, interrupting my student’s interview.
Now that’s a hooked student if ever there was one.
There are many threads on this topic, use the search tool and you’ll find 'em.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I’m a purist, so to me a hook is: you were either born with insane athletic ability/as a URM/into a family that has legacy and/or donates a lot of money to the school and/or are celebrities.
How much of a bump, if any, a particular hook will be given will be school-dependent. Particularly for highly selective schools, a hook will not supplant a deficiency elsewhere in the application.
Closing thread. The OP created an addional account to ask this question, in violation of Terms of Service.