HS Study Abroad- Is This a "Hook?"

Applying to College
21

<p>Just means you are a rich person. If anything that is bad. Colleges don’t want more rich white people to fill their colleges. Black people like me that have much less money and far fewer resources but can still try to be competitive deserve the leg up and rightfully get it.</p>

22

<p>

</p>

<p>Your speaking to admissions officers with 3 top LACs is a relative thing. What you think may be top LACs may not be someone else’s opinion of top LACs (mine is AWS).</p>

<p>I do not think the year in China matters as much as what she did in China. What did she study? Was the year in china related to what she is interested in studying in college. For example is your D is interested in Asian Studies, the year abroad would enforce her commitment to the subject area, but at the Ivies, AWS, it really would not necessarily be considered a hook.</p>

<p>Living with rudimentary plumbing and very odd food (boiled donkey skin?) as part of her year abroad would not give her a hook, but perhap would make for an interesting essay.</p>

<p>Yernspapa,</p>

<p>When looking at the rest of your son’s profile, his year abroad is not to be a hook and will not offset his gpa and SAT scores, which are a little low for the Ivies and top LACs.</p>

23

<p>I was wondering about the same thing for myself. I was afraid it would make me look affluent even though I am not. But I think that for lower-ranked schools it would make a candidate stand out if they emphasized the global experience, in an essay or interview maybe. At top schools like ivies, I don’t think so.</p>

24

<p>Merrry, as mentioned earlier we consulted a top private college counselor in addition to the excellent one at DS’s private high school. I think SYA is a weonderful program, lots of kids we know did it and loved it. But my DS’s goal was to get into one of 2 schools and we determined it would not help him and could hurt. We determined using his junior year in other ways would benefit him more.</p>

<p>I was an adcom at an ivy for 2 years in the dark ages. Adcom spout a lot of platitudes to students and parents. If you asked for a comparison between spending junior year abroad at a paid for program and spending it trying to win Intel, positioning for senior year leadership positions, working part time at McDonalds and focusing on raising SAT scores, you may have gotten a different answer.</p>