<p>Yale's basketball captain went to my high school. Does that count as a hook? :D</p>
<p>Not sure about "Extreme passion in certain field of study". You can be passionate but useless, that wouldn't be enough. And it doesn't have to be a 'field of study'.</p>
<p>How about "Extemely high achievement and passion in any significant activity"?</p>
<p>This would be at the truly national or international level, not those breakdancers and skateboarders who get in for being a bit goofy.</p>
<p>How about being filthy rich? In like, your parents donated a building to Yale and/or your parents donate crazy money to Yale... or the school of choice.</p>
<p>That has been the case at my school.</p>
<p>^^That's a developmental admit. An applicant (nonlegacy or legacy) whose parent has contributed or commited to contribute big, big money to a college has a powerful hook.</p>
<p>I think hooks would be more like uber prestigious awards or summer programs. For example:
RSI
TASP
ISEF
Siemens
Davidson Fellows
Congressional Gold Winners
National Debaters</p>
<p>Anything that is really selective basically. Or at least thats what I think.</p>
<p>Does URM status really help that much?</p>
<p>I'm Native American by the way, obviously an URM, sadly. I'm not applying to Yale, however.</p>
<p>It usually does, particularly being Native American because it's such a small portion of people..
What tribe are you affiliated with? I studied with an Abenaki Native American this summer for four weeks, he was an incredible guy :)</p>
<p>I don't think that TASP/RSI are the hooks people make them out to be. correlation vs causation. From my TASP (18 people), 9 applied SCEA, 4 in, 5 deferred. Some statistics~</p>
<p>Acceptances from mine:
1 Brown
1 Dartmouth
4 Yale
2 Stanford
1 NYU
1 Chicago</p>
<p>5 deferrals to Yale
1 rejected from Stanford (but then again, Stanford rejects much more than Yale)
2 didn't apply early</p>
<ul>
<li>7/8 of guys got in early, except me (deferred Yale, international)</li>
<li>All three internationals were deferred.</li>
<li>The four Indian kids (again, me) did not fare well</li>
</ul>
<p>hurrah for anecdotal evidence</p>
<p>4 out of 9 in SCEA suggests that TASP is either a pretty good hook, or just that TASPers are highly qualified. Even for typical hooks like legacy, URM, etc., plenty of applicants get deferred or rejected.</p>
<p>All four were very qualified. I'm not sure if anyone could call TASP/RSI a hook for certain unless it came straight from an adcom. I'd say that most TASPers (at UT at least) had a 2200+ or equivalent + stellar EC's + (I'd hope) the writing skills.</p>
<p>44% from our TASP (and I believe a similar percentage at Cornell) compared to 30% on CC compared to 13% overall is a pretty significant difference, but I don't think the name TASP is what causes that.</p>
<p>Maybe I should further qualify what I had asked (I really didn't think I had to do this....)</p>
<p>Suppose a student has independently studied Latin/Sanskrit and other languages in the Indo European family ( NOT Hittite...lolzors); Dari/Pashto/Icelandic (yeah....last one's a bit out of place...I know)...has begun taking Linguistics classes in earnest, and is getting a recommendation from a professor who taught the student recently in that field? The professor being a former term associate prof at Yale.</p>
<p>I'm not asking: Can a passion for a field that doesn't get much attention be a tip/hook for a student if they're ''useless''?</p>
<p>I'm asking: Can a qualified student whose major is in an uncommon field (assuming Classics/Linguistics and Math is uncommon), raise more approval?</p>
<p>Documented proficiency in several uncommon languages makes you an interesting candidate, and it's certainly worth bringing to the attention of the admissions committee. But as has been pointed out in this thread, undergrad students often change their majors, so an applicant's projected major is not all that significant from an admissions perspective. (Engineering at Yale may be an exception, but only if the applicant's stated interest in engineering is accompanied by tangible achievements in relevant academic areas.)</p>
<p>^ i didn't know that tasp accepts internationals...
anyway i'm in favor of the correlation theory. the thing is, programs like rsi and tasp are highly selective programs (some say even more so than yale), so the ppl who are selected for them are arguably qualified enough for most top colleges. let's say there's a guy who got accepted to harvard but decides to reject harvard (yay!), take a gap year and apply to yale instead... he's likely to get in by merit, not because of his harvard acceptance being a hook</p>
<p>I love how senior member's responses are always incredibly palatable and straightforward.</p>
<p>I know this has been discussed on previous threads, but what about being published in a peer reviewed scientific journal? How does it compare to some of the other hooks?</p>
<p>And any estimates on how many scientific published authors there are in this years graduating/applying class?</p>
<p>I figured it couldn't be more than siemens semifinalists;it's probably less..so perhaps 200-250?</p>
<p>^ IMO it means a lot more than Siemens. Siemens is "fed" by wealthy Long Island and New York schools with programs during class time that breed kids for competitions like that, and I think adcoms know that by now. Peer reviewed journals are as legit. as can be though.</p>
<p>You raise an interesting point, GC. I don't know about the relative value of authoring a peer-reviewed journal article vs. qualifying as an Intel/Siemens semifinalist, but I think it's vital to be cautious in making generalizations about the value/importance of any national or international competition/exam/program based on its popularity in your own region. For instance, it's clear that participation in Intel/Siemens is the norm for top science kids in the Northeastern US. That's not the case everywhere, though. In high schools in my area, a few top science students are invited to sit for the National Olympiads. But I personally know no science-oriented student who has participated in Intel/Siemens, including the two kids I know at MIT. I'm not sure my son, who earned national honors in the Chem Olympiad, has more than a passing idea of what Intel/Siemens even is. That scared me to bits when he was applying to colleges last year, as I read thread after thread about the importance of Intel/Siemens. It didn't make a bit of difference; he was accepted to Yale and its peer schools. </p>
<p>Again, your application is judged by the opportunities that are available to you in your school and community.</p>
<p>^ Exactly. I think that is what's meant when colleges say the evaluate application "in context." It can work against someone too, if their opportunities advantage them relative to most others.</p>
<p>Can a hook be being exceptionally good-looking?</p>