Is there hope for unhooked applicants at top schools? How much of a detriment is it?

Applying to College
1

With admissions becoming increasingly competitive, it seems almost impossible to get into a top 20 school without legacy, athletics, ethnicity, or donating an absurd amount of money. Speaking from personal experience, everyone that I’ve talked to who have gotten into an ivy, or a similar caliber school, has revealed that they had some connection or hook to get them in. With schools so heavily weighting these hooks in admissions, I’m honestly not surprised that they’re able to find enough people with good stats to be accepted.

For those of us who have worked hard their entire high school career, have great stats, have been active in their community, but are unhooked, is there any hope? Not just 1 in 100. I also understand the concept of a spike. At a certain point it’s too late to develop one; maybe this means training kids before high school just so they have a shot of acceptance at top schools, assuming this is a priority?

Also, does anyone know of any statistics relating unhooked vs hooked applicants and admissions odds? I can only imagine it’s at least four times harder to be accepted, especially with top 20 schools publishing info about how ~50% of their applicants are minorities and ~30% are legacy (depending on the school, of course).

Maybe future unhooked students should spend less time getting excellent grades, instead earning B’s, and devote the extra time toward preparing for the future to a greater extent.

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I wouldn’t say it’s impossible - my son got into a top 20 public school and his top choice - UChicago - with no hook. He was a good student - solid grades (although a B or two), high level math, had his own business and some interesting EC’s. I would say his personality really showed in his essays and the schools he applied to thought he would be a good fit.

I personally think doing what you love because you love it and not just to get into a “good” school and letting the Regional AO’s know why you would be a good fit to their school is key.

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It’s so virtually impossible in the RD round that IMO, you should work in HS to become the person you want to be, figure out what goals you want to reach in life and the paths that would allow you to reach them regardless of where you go to college.

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I think being full pay and applying ED help a lot for those of us without hooks. It also helps to attend a high school that is “known” to admission officers.

A family member just got admitted to a top 10 school. Although I gave the obligatory congratulations, that side of the family is so endowed with hooks that it wasn’t really a surprise.

5

Maybe a sliver. If you’re a junior, start visiting schools now. If you can afford a school that you like, apply ED. (But I would avoid HYPS&Brown early decision - all the ivies are a crapshoot for ED, but those are impossible without a hook) Otherwise, focus on safety schools and public schools. You can still get a great education at a great school. There are plenty of schools that would love to have you, and will incentivize you to attend. You just have to find them.

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@caymusjordan and @CollegePrepping2

You both have valid points.

No, it’s not impossible. Someone has to get in obviously.

But, in the specific case one should note that UC does like a certain kind of student and is test optional.

So congrats to your student and their achievements.

However the numbers tell a statistical story closer to @collegeprepping2 view. And you can send your regional AO a balloon-a-gram and it won’t help unless you fit exactly into the mosaic they are building.

There are nearly twice the amount of students in the USA and abroad seeking admissions to our colleges compared to the early 80s. And a proportionally tiny amount of increased capacity at the top 100, if at all. There were 2.3mm SAT test takers last year compared to under 1mm in the early 80s.

The thought of a student “starting a business” or publishing research was unheard of until recently — ecs were a sport, a part time job or powder puff football.

So this high intensity effort By thousands and thousands of students and parents, coupled with more demand and limited capacity have created a bit of a problem in perspective. Many parents and teachers had their framework of selectivity and admissions probability formed in the 80s and 90s.
The current reality still doesn’t register.

In 1980, UCLA haf a 74 percent admissions rate. Why would you not go play frisbee instead of all night studying like today’s kids. If you wanted to go to UCLA, it was nearly assured.

For super elite Harvard. Between athletes, legacies, institutional needs to address income equality, geographical diversity, staff and professor related, international students, newsmakers and celebrities and donation development candidates -perhaps upwards of 60-70 percent of seats are spoken for before the unhooked candidates get a reasonable assessment.

It is not impossible at all. But for the majority of unhooked average excellent students the super brands are a long shot at best. And much more so now, than ever before.

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It is not impossible but you need to find ways to differentiate yourself from a crowded field. Near perfect grades and test scores will get you considered but beyond that you need to distinguish yourself.

True answer is it depends on the extent to which you show leadership, results, initiative, etc through the activities you participate in.

The closest example I can provide is my son. Throughout high school he started and led a variety of both medical and housing missions throughout Latin America and India. He raised approximately $150k for one charity that he became a national leader for with 4,000 members. More importantly he founded a grass roots charity to support a segment of youth in desperate need of resources. By his senior year this charity had 12 “franchises” and was in 3 states. It has continued to grow based on a succession plan he put in place and now provides thousands of children with a variety of support through financial and material donations.

In his applications he didn’t focus on these achievements (LOCs detailed them), but instead laid out a plan to repurpose a specific recycled good into a desperately needed health resource for people in sub Sahara Africa. He included a business plan detailing resource accessibility, costs, logistics, local political risks etc… More importantly he had started the creation of the infrastructure needed to achieve his mission including mentors, government contacts and two private philanthropic and health orginazions that had commited in writting to support his plan. This charity is now up and running with the support of his colleges entrepreneurship department.

In his case as described, I think on top of strong grades, test scores, and being a very good (non recruited) 3 sport athlete his “social cause” set him apart. He was accepted at several Ivies and top 10s. He based his choice of schools on the one he thought best suited and committed to helping him fulfill his philanthropy and entrepreneurial goals.

I hope this provides some context as to what “standing out” takes at school’s such as those you aspire to. Keep in mind he also got a number of rejections so clearly other students for some schools stood out more than him.

It is a very narrow window for top 20s but achievable, and as everyone on CC mentions there are a lot more than 20 great schools out there.

No one can accurately say what your chances are for top 20s. If however you focus on the end result (getting into a top 20) and lack passion for the journey you will likely be both miserable and unsuccessful. Find things you care about, work hard, be succesful, lead others by example and everything else will fall into place.

Good luck!

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@Nocreativity1 Hah. I just got tired reading about his work. And to get good grades too. Holy smokes.

Jeff Bezos better watch out in a couple of years!

TBH I couldn’t have done all this at that age.

I used to study at a self serve gas station job 6 to 12. And I didn’t have that kind of vision or leadership your son obviously has. But that’s the competition now. I think big state flagships are even tough to find a spot now.

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There are about 2,000,000 kids of college age. About 54% of them are non-Hispanic White, which is 1,080,000. Assume that the poorest 20% have a “hook”, so that would be 864,000. Almost all accepted kids are the top 5%of SAT takers (look at the ranges), so that you mean that there would be about 43,000 kids. Some are legacies or have another hook, so we’re maybe talking about 40,000 kids. Many aren’t interested in an Ivy+, some cannot afford such a colleges, even if accepted. So, there are perhaps 20,000 unhooked White middle class kids applying for Ivy+ colleges. There are about 25,000 kids admitted to the Ivy+ colleges every year. If only 40% are unhooked White kids, that’s still about a 50% chance for an unhooked White kid to be accepted to an Ivy+ college.

If you expand that to T-20 or T-25, or adding top LACs, it starts closing in on 100%.

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Adding to the list of parents who have unhooked kids at top 3 colleges. Similar to caymusjordan and Nocreativity1’s examples, my kid’s differentiating factor was above-and-beyond EC.

I think the success rate for what cc calls “average excellent” (great grades, great test scores, class president, member of many clubs and charities but nothing out of the ordinary) unhooked students is lower without both the stellar EC and a fit with what the college is seeking.

As to your last statement about kids spending less time worrying about straight As and spending that time instead on stellar ECs, that worked for my son.

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@mmwolf there are 3.4mm grads last year. 70 percent apply to school immediately. There’s a large gap year cohort and smaller pg year cohort as well. Plus non traditional older student ie service acting or sports ie tennis.

So say it’s 2.4mm college bound and so add 200k to your totals for the unhooked Caucasian group you reference.

And then 10 percent of the entire class taken from overseas.

And 20 percent of Caucasian poor as an Ivy League hook? That’s just not a justifiable figure. Lower SES that is also first gen or an URM is a hook. Poor is just plain poor.

The numbers you state are just not reality.

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Thanks for the responses! I’m a high school senior, so this thread isn’t necessarily to prepare for the future. However, as I’ve reflect on my past four years and the effort I’ve devoted to much of my work (not just for the potential to go to a top 20 school, of course, but admittedly a bit), I realize that I didn’t make the most of my time. If I had focused less of my time toward getting perfect stats and dumping time into ECs, when in reality it only provides a sliver of hope for acceptance, I could have done something more productive given the extra time. There just seems to have been a lot of unnecessary work; my hope is that a future unhooked applicant reading this thread will shift their high school priorities.

Very impressive @Nocreativity1. With an EC like that, I’m not at all surprised that your son was able to succeed! He should be very proud of his accomplishments. While I have a hard time believing that all “unhooked” applicants had an EC that extensive, perhaps him getting rejected from schools suggests otherwise.

@privatebanker, I agree that the math is slightly off, but I appreciate the effort @MWolf. I have a feeling that the number is significantly lower with athletes, legacy, finances, etc.

Edit: Not to mention the type of high school attended. Personally, I go to a public high school where few students are accepted to top colleges every year (with hooks).

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@MWolf: The Ivy+ (if you’re including Ivy-equivalents like Duke, NU, U of C, Caltech, Rice, and Georgetown, not just MIT and Stanford) are most of the T-20.

Also, your percentage of slots for unhooked white kids at Ivies/equivalents is too high. Not 40%. Those with hooks are the majority at most of the Ivies/equivalents (maybe not Caltech and MIT; maybe not Rice, but they all have small entering classes). Possibly roughly 40% for unhooked, but that includes all the unhooked Asian kids too. So maybe about 10K slots for all unhooked kids. 100K in the top 5% of the SAT (even if you removed those who are hooked, there would be well over 50K in the top 5% of the SAT who are unhooked). But remember that half of them or more got in through ED and many of the rest are super impressive (Harvard admits 10% of its class solely by academics; these are kids who would be impressive enough to get in at Oxbridge, where their entrance exams are far tougher than any AP tests). The rest have amazing ECs.

The lesson to draw if you’re an average excellent kid? You have to use your ED (and maybe ED2) bullet carefully.

HYPS and Wharton early are just brutal if you are unhooked.

Average excellent kids have decent-to-good shots at many top LACs as well as top big publics like Cal and UMich (if they are able to pay). No guarantees even there, though.
You probably have to reach the UW-Madison/UCSD/NYU/McGill level (all good schools, mind you) or drop down lower in the LAC rankings before an unhooked average excellent kid (top 1-2 percentile by test scores) can feel like they are likelies.

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@CollegePrepping2 You are a very wise 18 year old. Good things are coming your way in life. Imho. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Peak when you’re my age, not yours ?

And @MWolf is an awesome poster and I agree with his general view on things.

Maybe it’s recency bias for me, (and I think it is tough for all students of all backgrounds) but unhooked kids seem to have the hardest time at the so called top 50 type schools from a “numbers” perspective. Not obstacles or embedded bias or any of that, at all. And I have no problem with the hooks for the most part but was just responding to your original post.

But all students - hooked, unhooked, athlete, first gen or URM earn their hard fought spot not matter what. That’s for sure. The only ones I question are mega donors. I believe they are needed but haven’t had to work as hard to get in. Many have worked very hard. It’s just not necessarily the same absolute requirement

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@bouders, being full-pay would not help at the need-blind schools. At the non-need-blind schools or if applying OOS to a top public, yes, I think it would help.

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@MWolf Your number is a quite bit off. Starting off with the US census data for 15-17yr old at 12,633,826, you have about 4.2 million in each class. With top 5% of white students (numbering at 113,400=4,200,000x54%x5%) vying for top schools the odd is not anywhere near the 100% as you suggested. Suppose 40% of Ivy+ seats of 25,000 go to US domestic unhooked kids and half of those unhooked admits are white, the number of seats at Ivy+ for unhooked white kids would be 5,000. That is 113,400 applicants for 5,000 slots, only 4.4% chance! Its not zero chance, but its certainly way below 100% or 50% as suggested.

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@CollegePrepping2 I think this is a great thread for future parents and kids reading about this. There’s a massive misunderstanding that alll you need to do to get into a T20 is get straight As, get 99%tiles tests and do some ECs and/or school government. There are at least 5-10xs as many of these kids as there are slots for them in T20 schools. If you look carefully at the elite schools the AO officers can be said that the final admissions pool is at least 3X the number of slots, meaning the final candidates are largely indistuingishable. 10% of these classes are overseas, 10% are pell grant, 25% are URM (at a minimum) 15% are recruited athlete (~180 per class per Ivy), donors 5-10%? - what’s left is not much.

In our well off public district about half the kids that get into Ivies are URMs despite being maybe 20% of the population in the district.

Also, I learned that going to a private school increases your odds a lot more than going to even the best publics . Public magnets (stuyvesant, boston latin, NC science and math ) are exceptions. Private schools don’t rank, have multiple editors in chief for newspapers etc… + have counselors whose sole job is writing reference letters. In our public district it’s unlikely the counselor letters will be
spelling and grammar error free let alone impressive. Each counselor has about 500 kids to schedule all their classes, deal with kids who cause trouble, etc. and help those apply to college. the work load per counselor is much smaller at private schools

The guy from parkland who had a 1270 SAT and got into Harvard had 950,000 twitter followers and organized a national march. The best way to get into an Ivy for a well off white or asian kid is to either be a national level D1 athlete or write an app that becomes a hit or get 1 million twitter followers (I am not joking) . (take up field hockey or fencing or something that has little competition)

Yes I agree for most planning for life and going for a top in state public and saving money or going to a LAC that you can afford or get merit money are more realistic plans for the unhooked.

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I agree with @PurpleTitan in that using ED wisely is probably an unhooked student’s best strategy.

I was shocked at the percentage of slots some schools are filling ED.

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Agreed, and for the unhooked, don’t waste that SCEA or ED on a T15 school where you have very little chance of admission. Use it at a T15-30 school where it may be determinative

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Slight modification and I agree - don’t waste an ED app on ANY school where you have very little chance of admission, no matter what the college rank or if it’s your “dream”. Part of the key is knowing what each of the colleges is looking for and figuring out if you are it. The T3 school where my son was admitted was looking for students like him; he would probably not have been admitted at most of the other T3 colleges because the things he demonstrated so clearly were not what they prioritize. They really are each looking for some distinct things and those things differ by school. Making sure you’re a match before you apply makes a huge difference.