PLEASE STOP referring to URMs as hooks!

Dear Friends: PLEASE STOP referring to URMs as hooks!

A “hook” is your gift, your talent, your differentiator - that which sets you apart. The star violinist, the top lacrosse player, the "mathlete - those are all wonderful, credible “hooks” in the process.

Being an under-represented minority on predominantly white campuses and in predominantly white schools is really hard and it should not be described as a hook. When you buy-in to the notion of an URM being a “hook” you perpetuate the myth that these same students are not qualified. That is never the case. Schools want their student to excel, thrive and finish. You cannot do that by admitting less than qualified students. Perpetuating this myth creates a headwind for students of color and becomes part of the psyche of the majority students that you send to the school as well.

To excel as a student in an academically challenging environment, while being the one and only, or one of the few, experiencing the subtleties of racism and having your outsider status highlighted on a daily basis and still earning grades that make a student a compelling candidate to the top schools, demonstrates enormous intellectual capacity, emotional intelligence and often a strength of character.

To do this, while learning and achieving excellence, when all kids want is to fit in, because ultimately that is what kids want, is nothing short of remarkable!

As a mother of a black boy who has earned straight As and extremely high test scores with a variety of interesting “hooks”, I ask you to please stop it.

It is what it is. I understand how you feel about your accomplished son but campuses are not predominantly white anymore and it is in large part due to affirmative action policies across education. I vehemently disagree with affirmative action for many of the reasons you state. But whether you like it or not , under represented minorities are coveted in admissions and it is a hook. In fact there are numerous posters who post in the chance thread here, often with lesser qualifications , and they ask, and often assert that it will, if it help them as an URM.

That’s one barn door that’s just not going to be closed. However, I will direct you to a couple of threads below where you can vent:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/319650-say-it-here-cause-you-cant-say-it-directly-the-get-it-off-your-chest-thread.html#latest

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1963693-things-people-do-that-are-so-irritating-p12.html

I don’t think you do understand how I feel (although that is not a requirement for a healthy exchange of ideas). Nor does it soften your sentiment.

My point is that the reference to URM as a hook perpetuates the myth that the students are not just as qualified as majority students. This is categorically untrue - admissions officers simply will not admit a student that does not demonstrate the potential to do well and to finish.

When schools pursue diversity recruiting initiatives, they do so to enrich the overall environment of the school - and that effort cuts across race, class, geography as well as the variety of true “hooks.”

Finally, I have yet to meet a person of color who has said that their journey was made easier because of it.

The OP makes an excellent argument, perhaps inadvertently, for the elimination of affirmative action policies. The existence of affirmative action ultimately winds up stigmatizing many qualified URM students who may well have been accepted on their academic statistics and accomplishments alone. But suspicion will always remain because, in fact, being URM does confer a very significant boost to whatever statistics and accomplishments any particular URM student presents.

I disagree. Students with hooks are not perceived as less qualified than the others; they simply have one thing that made them stand out.

Here is a public test in school in NYC where kids take a test and the top scorers are admitted. in that year Every applicant is numbered and it is open to kids in all boroughs. 1000’s of kids apply. No hooks, no money, no sports no nothing but tests and minimum GPA.

"New Explorations into Science, Technology, and Math High School is a k-12 school with 1730 students from kindergarten through grade 12. The school population comprises 9% Black, 11% Hispanic, 42% White, and 33% Asian students. The student body includes 0% English language learners and 1% special education students. Boys account for 48% of the students enrolled and girls account for 52%. "

@Earnedit I agree with you 100%. Identifying your race as a hook as some on this forum do implies that somehow you are only admitted for your race and not all of the qualifications and accomplishments that are a part of your application. Some of these students may indeed have lower test scores because their parents could not afford for them to take test prep classes or pay for them to take the test multiple times as so many on these forum talk about as though it is completely normal. My kid came from a school that didn’t have clubs to offer him leadership opportunities. There were no stem classes or honor societies. His sport is baseball but the school did not field a team because the equipment was too expensive. His school tried to educate him the best they could and that is all they did. Admission officers realize that all schools are not created equal. That is why some schools will take a student with lower scores because they evaluate the student holistically. They look at the students application relative to the opportunities available to them. The playing field is not always equal and every kid does not have the same opportunities.

As a side note, the biggest benefactor of affirmative action policies are white females.

@Center, you do realize that money will always come into play. Most of those students are probably admitted on their own merits. However, I am sure that a lot of the students have great test scores and great GPA’s because their parents were able to afford tutors and test prep. Every kid did not have access to those opportunities.

Thank you @queenmother and great additional points.

I don’t consider kids with hooks (including URM) to be less qualified than other admitted kids.

What a hook means to me is that the odds of admission are somewhat higher all else being equal. So if the odds of admission for a certain SAT score and GPA combo is 10% then the odds of admission for a good athlete or piano player or student from Wyoming or URM might be 20% rather than 10%.

All of the kids with hooks whose odds of admission are slightly higher are fully qualified – but it is true that their odds of admission are statistically higher than those without any admission hooks.

Their odd of admission is probably higher because their are not as many of them applying. As mentioned in another thread, white males have more applicants so they have a lower rate of admissions. URM have a higher rate because there are not as many of them applying. So even though the school admit 2 minority males and 54 white males the white males had a harder time being admitted.

Yes I agree with Queenmother – a “hook” means a higher chance of admission all else being equal due to proportionately fewer qualified applicants with the desirable “hook” characteristics. That is true of athletes for teams, URM, legacy, kids from obscure states, musicians for the band, etc.

There have been all sorts of studies of race preference in the college and professional schools admissions processes - generally involving public institutions because the data are more transparent. At that level, race preferences are enormous. As just one example, a Princeton economist and Northwestern University law professor estimated that without race preference, numbers of admitted black students at “elite” law schools would fall by 90% (see http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5667&context=uclrev for the whole study). A “real world” study was run over a decade ago in California after passage of Prop 209 (prohibiting race-based preference in the University of California system, among other public schools in California), and in the years immediately following passage, rates of URM admissions fell by more than 50% at the most desirable “flagship” campuses.

I’m not aware of any studies of prep schools, but I find it impossible to believe that similar preferences would not show up, if studied. Anyway, selfishly I hope that they do exist because my DS is URM!

Who /what/where is this “myth” being perpetuated that URMs are less qualified (particularly in reference to prep school admissions)? I don’t agree at all. The schools are not interested in admitting students who won’t be successful, regardless of what color their skin is.

My D is not a URM but she has several demographic type factors that might tip the scale at both prep schools and colleges that value diversity. I played them up for whatever they’re worth! Geographic diversity, familial diversity, etc. etc.

Hooks are just “tip the scale” things or “catch their eye” things. They range the gamut from color of skin, having two moms, growing up in foster care, playing the tuba, living in the back country of Alaska or the center of Harlem, you name it.

All schools strive to build a diverse class. A candidate who brings in racial, ethnic, geographic, social, or economic diversity thus has an advantage over other SIMILARLY QUALIFIED candidates. “Hook” probably isn’t the best word choice. I think of it more as an asset - you have good grades and scores despite not having had all opportunities or privileges others are born with, and having had to overcome obstacles. I understand how “hook” casts the entire concept of diversity in a negative light. Although I don’t believe that’s been intentional, I agree that a more fitting term is needed. Edge? Asset? Bonus?

It should go without saying that all admitted students meet basic academic criteria and the school is confident in their ability to succeed. That said, my Southern kid definitely had a higher chance of admission in a New England BS than a similarly qualified kid from New England. She didn’t have that “hook” when applying to BSs in the South, though; a New England kid did. That regional “hook” doesn’t make either kid stupid or undeserving of admission. It’s more of a supply-and-demand thing, where a more rare commodity is priced - and prized - higher.

Just my thoughts. I hope they haven’t been offensive to anyone.

Obviously not applying this to all URMs… but this applies even more frequently when talking about geographic URMs…
A kid from NE would have had a more diverse choice of clubs, activities, and sports Vs. a kid from a small town in Arkansas (chose a random state… meant no offense).

Being a URM draws a bit more attention to you app. Is it fair? Hmm

Lets say there were twins (separated at birth), and one living in NE and the other living SW (Twin A and B, respectively). Both have out sanding stats (grades/standardized testing) and have similar EC’s… Which one stands out?
Twin B, because (in the eyes of some AOs) he had to work a bit harder to find that squash club.

Not sure how fair it is but it is relevant (i.e. AO’s still use them when considering apps)… and I am afraid that we are currently stuck with them…

Being in an ORM, I am afraid I have no choice…
“Moooom… Can we move to Antarctica?”

MODERATOR’S NOTE:
The purpose of this thread is NOT to debate Affirmative Action. That conversation is solely limited to the below thread. 3 posts deleted.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1843141-race-in-college-applications-faq-discussion-12-p1.html

Per definition, currently URM IS a hook in elite school admissions. Racial diversity is one of the diversities many elite schools are pursuing to build a balanced class for the purpose of an ideal learning environment, if nothing else. To achieve such diversities, race is being taken into consideration in admission decisions and URM is a “helping” factor, which is how hooks work. It doesn’t mean all URMkids accepted have non admissible deficiencies, not at all. It does mean that occasionally if hypothetically a kid’s racial identity is redacted from the application he/she wouldn’t be accepted. Same way other hooks such as legacy works.

@GoatMama For the record, you haven’t been offensive (at least not to me).

I am so glad that there are so many enlightened parents on this thread, that none of you have harbored the sentiment (or pass down the sentiment to their kids, the future classmates to these students) that URMs were accepted because they were URM, or that that is why their majority kid wasn’t accepted…

I know I have personally heard that sentiment and my son has heard it. But certainly none you have ever said it, thought it or shared that sentiment with your kids. Never.