Is being LGBT a "hook"?

[picktails]

Thought you’d like to hear the my D is a soph at Penn, and they have a very welcoming LGBTQA center and actively promote support on campus. My daughter is not gay, but has always had many friends who are from her theater involvement. This year one of her roommates is a lesbian and her best friend is gay, and she spends time in that community.

Penn also includes the LGBTQA population in it’s diversity visit on campus for accepted students, where they can arrive a day early.

[lookingforward]

…just because something is real doesn’t make it a good essay topic.

It’snot the challenge but how you deal with it. And what you show, not just tell.

[warblersrule]

@BabylonBabylon

on colleges that ask you to self-identify as LGBT (specifically talking about Penn, though I’m sure other schools have the question), is this a “hook” like being a URM?

That’s a reasonable question – but no, it’s not a hook. They’re asking in order to reach out to admitted (or even prospective) queer students. Penn has been doing this for a while now, and others like Dartmouth and Duke have jumped on the bandwagon as well.

@Inside Higher Ed

At many colleges, it’s a standard part of the recruiting process once applicants are admitted. Current students who share individual traits or academic interests help reach out to prospective students with similar backgrounds or interests. So the young woman who expresses an interest in engineering will hear from a female junior in engineering. A black admit might hear from a black student, and so forth. The idea is that these students may be uniquely well positioned to answer questions and to make the case that the college is a good place to be a female engineer, a black undergrad, or whatever.

This year, the University of Pennsylvania is applying the idea to admitted applicants who are gay…

Penn is identifying gay admits through information they provide on their applications – groups that they are members of, or statements they make about themselves in their essays. One question on the Penn application asks applicants about the communities they would like to be active in at the university, and the answers include academic interests, social and cultural organizations, and – for some students – gay life at the university.

Furda said that an admitted applicant wouldn’t be identified on the basis of one stand-alone fact, such as membership in a gay-straight alliance at a high school, given how many people are members of such groups these days. The university is looking for admitted applicants who have indicated in some way that gay issues are very important in their considerations.

For those looking for a campus that is supportive of its gay students and has many activities for them, Penn is “an exceptional place,” Furda said. So having members of the Lambda Alliance, the umbrella gay group on campus, reach out to prospective students should only help Penn enroll more of those it has admitted, he said.

@Details 2010

Mention the idea that an LGBT student in some way gets extra admissions points to Jordan Pascucci, an admissions officer at Penn who’s a lesbian, and she disagrees. “Not at all,” she says. “The reality of it is that this outreach is no different than what already happens with almost every other group on campus. All the cultural resource centers do this already, and it’s a shame that it took so long to happen with the LGBT community.”

[helpless2017]

It’s not a hook; however, it can be a useful factor on your application if you, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, did something to advocate for the community in your town/state/whatever

[MYOS1634]

Not in itself, but if it appears in your essays as a legitimate obstacle - ie, if you live in a very conservative, religious family and you can’t tell your family, or if you came out and were ostracized, or if some people bullied you because of their perceptions. So it wouldn’t be a hook but the lessons you learned in overcoming prejudice would definitely tell something about your character that would be valued by colleges.

[jackisawesome]

@educateddarcy I feel as though your comment (while definitely old) is irrelevant. The only discrimination that would be relevant in this scenario would be based off of sexuality. If heterosexual kids were bullied for being heterosexual, which basically never happens (by that, I mean never.), than that comment would be appropriate.

[marvin100]

@skieurope

Unless the applicant is applying from Saudi Arabia or some similarly oppressive state, I’d think twice about writing on this topic.

Just a few years ago, I knew a student from an Asian country (not very progressive on sexuality, but far from Saudi Arabia-level persecution) who came out of the closet in their application essay. They received a handwritten note from the Dean of Admissions at the HYPS that accepted them early praising their bravery, honest, and writing skill. They are now in a Ph.D program at any HYPS school.

But to the OP: Nope, still not a “hook.”

[UCLAislife]

It’s merely to aid in calculating the school’s demographic breakdown.