<p>Brooklynmom I am from brooklyn too</p>
<p>I think the best âHookâ to HYP for a Metro NY kid is to get 1500 + SATâs (or todayâs equivalent ) and then just be yourself. Have the confidence to do what you want to do- be it working in a Day Camp, or a supermarket.<br>
There are way too many kids who get involved with certain activities because they think Harvard will be impressed.<br>
Honestly- the kid with great grades, SATâs a few solid activities and who shows the confidence to be himself may fare better with HYP admission than the kid who tries to do everything in order to get into HYP.
PS-- I am from Brooklyn tooâSBHS class of 19__.<br>
Going to Brooklyn tonight to visit my mom.</p>
1 Like
<p>Erasmus 19â</p>
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<li><p>unhooked kids from everywhere get into HYP, hooked kids get in at a greater rate</p>
<ul>
<li>Stuy may send the largest number of kids to HYP, but its a very large sch (3500), and thus send a smaller % of its students to HYP than some other public schs and a signif smaller % than many NYC day (pvt) schools</li>
<li>as bad as it is being from NYC, itâs worse coming from the suburbs (same geog aread, but w/o the cache of being a from the city)</li>
<li>donât forget that these days being a boy is a bit of a hook</li>
<li>SATs of 1500+ will put you in the running, but hardly constitutes a hook (plenty of kids w/ perfect 1600âs get rejected)</li>
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<p>A Stanford rep explained hooks and tips in this way: Tips push an applicant over the fence (separating the admits from the non-admits). hooks are something applicants use to get themselves across. They are stronger than tips.</p>
<p>Iâve got a painting that just fell off the wall because the hook fell off, so I have a new take on hooks 
I am very leery of devices that are " a bit of a hook."</p>
<p>There are guaranteed hooks, strong hooks and weak hooks. And there are tips.
Provided that applicants have minimally acceptable GPAs and SAT scores, a guaranteed hook would be being a facbrat or the child of a major donor (not talking about the $1million kind at HYP) or a famous person in oneâs own right (e.g. an Olympic figure skater or actor). International Olympiad gold medalist or acclaimed artist would also be a guaranteed hook (and in the case of the gold medalists, the GPAs and SAT scores would be much higher than minimally acceptable). Someone who had done extraordinary community service would have a strong hook provided it was combined with a strong record; or a URM, first-generation applicant or low SES applicant.
Weak hooks need an even stronger record and social profile. Tips might be given for gender, intended major, geography.</p>
<p>A hook is the âcatchyâ bit of the app that gets the student ** to** the fenceâŠis that your view, marite?</p>
<p>JHS suggests the unhooked rate is 50/50 from Philly. That percentage split surprises me because itâs not that high from some of the Top 100 matriculating high schools-- as I reckon. In my several decades of single data point observation, many of the apps from those top schools have substantial hooksâalong with their fabulous academic records.</p>
<p>btw, I am bemused by some of the visceral parent reaction to âhookâ. I had one PM that suggested I not contemplate the issue until I had âputâ as many kids into HYP as he/she had. :eek:</p>
<p>Cheers:</p>
<p>I would say a hook is what gets an application into the definite admit pile, not the âhmmm⊠worth another look; letâs discussâ or the " quarter finals" or âsemi-finals.â Hooks can be different for different colleges. A star quarterback with ho-hum stats wonât be hooked at a college that has no football team, for instance. A $1 million donorâs kid might be hooked at some colleges but not at others (someone told me a while ago that it now takes something like $5million to endow a chair at Harvard; I think it is possible to endow chairs for less than $1 million at lots of colleges still). An Asian-American kid would have a higher chance of getting into some highly selective small NE LACs than into a top UC, for instance. Such a kid might have as good a chance as an African-American or Hispanic (thatâs the impression we got 8 years ago when we first did college tours).</p>
<p>How about a homeless kid from NYCâŠthat could be a hook if the candidate was comparable in other waysâŠ</p>
<p>^^ Yes. I canât remember where Liz Murray, the homeless girl who was admitted to Harvard (but later dropped out) was from. But her story certainly was noteworthy.</p>
<p>Whatâs a âhook?â Do kids who are not legacies, URMs, recruited athletes, or developmental cases and/or celebrities or the children of celebrities get into HYP from NYC? YES. But..that saidâŠit is HARDER. Most..not allâŠbut most such kids have âbeyond the schoolâ recognition in at least one and often more than one field. The more outstanding the recognition, the fewer ECs you have to âshineâ in. Part of the problem is that it is just a whole lot harder to âshineâ at anything when there are 8 mAnillion people in your âneighborhood.â </p>
<p>On the flipside, if you are first in your class at StuyâŠor Collegiate..or BrearleyâŠthatâs a LOT more impressive than being first in your class at American Fork H.S. in Utah. The val at American Fork might really be a BIG FISH, who can swim with the whales. However, the val could simply be a medium size fish in a pond. Itâs hard for admissions folks to tell. The Stuy <em>star</em> is a big fish. But the kid who is say 25% down in the class isnât. At American Fork, he might have been first in his class. </p>
<p>Let me give a few examples. You know that contest where you build bridges out of toothpicks or some such thing for physics class? Well, at my kidâs NYC public magnet, there were two entries which were almost dead even. But back then, each high school could only submit one entry. People disagreed as to which of the two bridges was bestâeven the teachers didnât agree. But eventually, a choice was made and entered in the contest. It won for NYC. It won for NYState. It was entered into the national contestâŠand came out second out of the 52 finalistsâ50 states plus DC and Puerto Rico </p>
<p>If the kids who built the second bridge had gone to another high school in another state, they probably could have said they built the best bridge at their high school. They might have won their city. They might have won their state. ButâŠthey couldnât even claim they built the best bridge in their physics class. </p>
<p>There are all these contests for things like Coca-Cola Scholar where they assign so many points for X, Y and Z. It is almost unheard of for a NYC kid to win. Why? Because in NYC itâs pretty close to impossible to have a part time job, be a star of the sports team, play in the student orchestra and be a valedictorian. I went to a supposedly good suburban high school in the Midwest..and LOTS of kids worked part time, played sports and a musical instrument and ended up with good grades. Part of the reason was that, assuming you did not have learning disabilities, if you had an IQ of 120, were academically-oriented, and studied 2-3 hours a night, you did get good grades. You had TIME to do other things. </p>
<p>At my kidâs NYC public magnet, a lot of kids who tried out for orchestra were taking lessons at âpre-Julliard.â The kids who ended up being âsecond chairââdonât know if folks actually use that term, but they werenât first chairâwent to Harvard..and were first chair there. I am not exaggerating (sp?) The first chair went to Julliard. So here is this kid who wasnât first chair in high schoolâŠbut was at Harvard. </p>
<p>Another true storyâŠThere is a pre-school program for gifted and talented kids at Columbia Teachers College. It may not be PC to say this, but many of the kids who enroll are kids who did not get admitted to Hunter Elementary and/or the Anderson program. In one class, there were 14 children. One died in a traffic accident. 9 of the 13 kids in the class who lived until they were high school seniors placed in the top 40 in Intel. By that time, the majority had moved out of state. Of the remaining 4, 3 were Intel semifinalists. As far as I know, no journal has picked this up. What happened is just that when proud parents looked over the list of semifinalists and finalists, they recognized the names of their kidsâ pre-school classmates. </p>
<p>So, can you get into HYP if you are from NYC and arenât a legacy, recruited athlete or URM? YES. But a lot of the kids who are rejected would have gotten in if they were from somewhere else.</p>
<p>second chair in NYC is probably the equivalent of first chair in the rest of the worldâsave Moscow?</p>
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<p>Thatâs a corollary of being at a school well known not only for its academics but also for the excellence of its music students: you do not have to be val or sal. HYP accept multiple students from some schools (Boston Latin, Roxbury Latin, Andover, Exeter, and so on) because they know the top or near top students are excellent. A student, however, coming from Podunk High in the middle of nowhere, would have a geographical tip but s/he would probably be the only one from that school accepted to HYP.</p>
<p>three students accepted into yale from regular nyc public plus all other ivies were represented</p>
<p>^^^ Say what??</p>
<p>Iâm actually surprised to read that people think itâs difficult to get into HYP from NYC. I donât know about the publics, but I would say many of the fine private schools in NYC are direct feeders to HYP. In fact, I know a family whose kid went to Trinity. In her graduating class (small class, but I donât know the exact number), seven were accepted and went to Harvard. (Many others went on to other Ivys). The parents were stunned, since the stats of these kids just werenât that impressive, nor had they done anything very outstandingâat all; only one out of the seven was a legacy. So what helped them? Well, the Trinity admissions director used to be on the admissions staff at Harvard, so had a direct line to them. </p>
<p>Iâm sure thatâs not unusual at many of the privates in NYC. So maybe that is a hook, and youâre only asking if one can get in from a NYC public school?</p>
<p>spsdds-</p>
<p>Three off to Yale and other Ivies isnât that unusual, even at a âregularâ public hs b/c the classes are so large. D3âs very popular Manhattan public sch is considered at 1200 students. Of the approx 300 grands, a number go to to schs every year - - thatâs a handful out of 300+. So itâs not surprising that shcs w/ graduating classes b/w 600 and 800 place a 20-50 kids at top colleges. I know unhooked kids from public schs who have enrolled at Williams, Brown, Wesleyan, Amherst, etc. And even the most notorious publics ( ie: Boys and Girls HS in Bklyn) regualraly send a few kids to top college. But these kids are pretty much stat insignif in terms of the overall public sch pop.</p>
<p>Now check out the stats at even a second/third tier day sch like Calhoun - - graduating class of 80+ with approx. 15-18 enrolling at top colleges. (NB: this is a shc where the first year of sci isnât even standard bio or chem, which has no AP classes and which offers âintro to pre-calcâ as a 4th year math class - - I canât imagine what would happen if these kids had to take the annual Regents exams!). It certainly looks like attending ANY pvt sch is at least a tip.</p>
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<p>Iâd say thatâs a hook or a major tip. 1. school known to Ivies. 2. GC used to be on staff of Ivy. Yep. It should be noted that some of the better known public schools have GCs who also know the admission staffs at a number of colleges. It gives their students a major advantage if they can advocate for them.</p>
<p>A friend who worked in admissions at a top 20 LAC was recently hired by Lâvlle as a college counselor. Likewise, director of college counseling at D2âs BS also came from to 15 LAC. At the very least, the college counseling staff at pvt schs are alumni of top colleges (Calhoun college advisor is, I believe, a Wesleyan alum). Yeah, it helps a lot.</p>
<p>Okay, I feel like an idiot, what is HYP?</p>
<p>and while weâre at it, what is LAC?</p>
<p>No Need to feel like an idiot (it took a moment for many of us to figure it out) Harvard, Yale, Princeton</p>