<p>I posted a chance thread and someone commenting by saying that my EC's needed more hooks for Duke. What does this mean? Thanks</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve been wondering what people mean by “hooks” (not just in the case of ECs) since joining CC. I suppose hooks in ECs would mean a demonstrated passion that you really followed through on (and plan to continue while in college), but how much do other hooks really count? People seem to list them as Recruited Athlete, URM, First Generation, etc…</p>
<p>Certainly, legacies qualify as “hooks,” but more generally, anything that makes your app rise above all the other excellent applicants. Anything that causes a reviewer to pause while reading your app and say “hmmm.”</p>
<p>You might try searching “What is a hook” under CC’s goggle advanced search. Here’s what I got</p>
<p>[College</a> Confidential Site Search Results](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/search_results.htm]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/search_results.htm)</p>
<p>Hope this works, it’s a post by Kyledavid</p>
<p>Senior Member</p>
<p>Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 7,811</p>
<p>What is a Hook?</p>
<p>This delves into it somewhat too:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/210497-those-ecs-weak-so-what-s-good.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/210497-those-ecs-weak-so-what-s-good.html</a></p>
<p>Basically, something really unique and awesome can be a hook. Perhaps you’re Key Club International president (and I mean, the president of ALL districts). Or perhaps you wrote an influential book. Or perhaps you started an organization that raised many thousands of dollars for a certain cause.</p>
<p>The traditional “hooks” are URM, legacy, and athlete.</p>
<p>Another way of looking at it: according to this article</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/st...01fea501.shtml[/url]”>http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/st...01fea501.shtml</a></p>
<p>about 5% of the applicant pool are “clear admits” (in 1998, that was about 900 of the ~18,000 that applied). So, a hook might be construed as something that only 5% of the applicant pool would have, thus placing you in the top 1000 or so students.</p>
<p>7’2" with speed and agility --or 6’2" with a great assist to turnover ratio. However, both require a demonstrated desire to play defense.</p>
<p>Hooks aren’t something you can just add to your application. Hooks are either something you can’t change (URM, legacy, recruited athlete) or something that you devote ** a lot ** of time to that Duke would really want you for.</p>
<p>itsasmallworld and Shrinkrap are right. Hooks are generally short, unique taglines about yourself that will “hook” or grab the adcom’s attention. </p>
<p>Underrepresented Minority
First Generation Attending College
Legacy (Parents Attended The School)
Athletic Superiority
Any Phenomenal Positions Held. (Presidents, Activists, Founders of Organizations)
Interesting Hobbies (Band Gigs At Your Local Coffee Shop, Bird Calling)
Citizen Of Another Country, Immigrated At Young Age
Odd Circumstances You Overcame At Home (deceased parents, emancipated, etc.)</p>
<p>And I could go on forever but I’m sure you get the point.</p>
<p>As you look at the most selective schools in the country, they may each only have room to accept 10% or so of their applicant pool, but the SATs and GPAs of the top half or even three-quarters of the applicant pool are likely to be so clustered near the maximums that there’s no meaningful distinction between them. The qualitative difference between a 2300 / 4.0 and a 2200 / 3.9 is basically nil. So it tends to be the special value added that a student brings which may tip the admissions decision. Either having a quality or talent that has the potential to bring value to campus life or having accomplishments that suggest that you have the long-range potential to significantly impact the world is a pretty good hook to go along with good grades and test scores.</p>
<p>Fudge, look at this website…[Diversity</a> at Duke University](<a href=“http://diversity.duke.edu/atduke/demographics.php]Diversity”>http://diversity.duke.edu/atduke/demographics.php)</p>
<p>I’m not tyring to “rub it in people’s faces”, but, as Duke considers its Native population to be essentially 0% (it’s technically 0.02% ;)), does this mean a Native applicants chances are increased significantly? That’s crazy low for a top school…</p>