<p>1 -Double Legacy + Grandparent legacy
2 -Single Legacy
3 -URM Native American
4 -URM Black/Hispanic
5 -Varsity 4 years + 2 years as captain of 2 tennis and basketball
6 -Low Income + First Generation
7 -RSI/TASP
8 -Professionally published work (poetry, science, etc)
9 -Disability (hearing loss, loss of a limb, wheelchair, etc)
10 -Born in an exotic country, grew up in 5 different countries, fluent in 4 languages.</p>
<p>Rank them!</p>
<p>Wow, tough but interesting question. </p>
<p>I'd say:</p>
<p>1 Double legacy + Grandparent legacy
2 RSI/TASP
3 Professionally published work (poetry, science, etc)
4 URM Black/Hispanic
5 URM Native American
6 Single legacy
7 Low income + First generation
8 Born in an exotic country, grew up in 5 different countries, fluent in 4 languages.
9 Disability (hearing loss, loss of a limb, wheelchair, etc.)
10 Varsity 4 years + 2 years as captain of 2 tennis and basketball</p>
<p>Would a disability such as hearing loss(not deafness) be considered a hook?</p>
<p>Some have said it was their hook. Ehh, what a hook is can be debatable.</p>
<p>I have a severe hearing loss, and I didn't even mention it on my applications. I'm not applying to any top 20 schools, so it's not like I need a compelling sob story to get accepted, but it really would have made for a unique essay.</p>
<ol>
<li>Double Legacy + Grandparent legacy</li>
<li>Disability (hearing loss, loss of a limb, wheelchair, etc)</li>
<li>URM Native American</li>
</ol>
<p>Dunno about the rest</p>
<p>What does RSI/TASP mean?</p>
<p>ugh ***
i wish i knew</p>
<p>RSI/Tasp are the two summer programs with the highest prestige.</p>
<p>URM with good stats trumps published work and legacy any day. I know alot of people with published research in say Cell who got denied from their top choices, and a couple smart legacies as well (less often). RSI TASP is up there.</p>
<p>URM+Legacy+Smart+Published= Ownage</p>
<p>
[quote]
</p>
<p>1 Double legacy + Grandparent legacy
2 RSI/TASP
3 Professionally published work (poetry, science, etc)
4 URM Black/Hispanic
5 URM Native American
6 Single legacy
7 Low income + First generation
8 Born in an exotic country, grew up in 5 different countries, fluent in 4 languages.
9 Disability (hearing loss, loss of a limb, wheelchair, etc.)
10 Varsity 4 years + 2 years as captain of 2 tennis and basketball
[/quote]
</p>
<p>native american is better than black/hispanic.</p>
<p>That wasn't my actual rankings...</p>
<p>For me it'd go like this:</p>
<p>1 Double legacy + Grandparent legacy
2 RSI/TASP
3 URM Native American
4 URM Black/Hispanic
5 Single legacy
6 Professionally published work (poetry, science, etc)
7 Varsity 4 years + 2 years as captain of 2 tennis and basketball
8 Low income + First generation
9 Born in an exotic country, grew up in 5 different countries, fluent in 4 languages.
10 Disability (hearing loss, loss of a limb, wheelchair, etc.)</p>
<p>8 -Professionally published work (poetry, science, etc)</p>
<p>4 -URM Black/Hispanic and 3 -URM Native American (not so sure about this, haven't met any)</p>
<p>10 -Born in an exotic country, grew up in 5 different countries, fluent in 4 languages.</p>
<p>1 -Double Legacy + Grandparent legacy
2 -Single Legacy (of course this comes after double leg.?)</p>
<p>5 -Varsity 4 years + 2 years as captain of 2 tennis and basketball</p>
<p>9 -Disability (hearing loss, loss of a limb, wheelchair, etc) (assuming this person still does decently despite circumstances)</p>
<p>6 -Low Income + First Generation (well, more helpful for state schools IMO)</p>
<p>Don't know much about the 7 -RSI/TASP programs.</p>
<p>why not add ICho (as well as the physics, math,and biology teams)?...</p>
<p>buy anywaY:</p>
<p>Dobule legacy + grandparent legacy
Single Legacy
Urm black/hispanic
Urm Native american
professionally published work
Varsity, captain
Low income + first generation
Disability
RSI/TASP
Born in exotic county</p>
<p>how are you putting rsi after all those. it would be after urm at the lowest</p>
<p>I'm not so sure that TASP and RSI are considered to be "hooks". Yes the programs are prestigious, but I really don't think that an adcom looks at an application and instantly wants the applicant because they went to TASP or RSI. I believe it's that the people who get into these programs are amazing before the program that makes them desirable, regardless of what summer programs they attended.</p>
<p>I think it is difficult to rank these without knowing what school types are being considered. I.e., all colleges, big colleges, top 50 colleges, top 10 colleges etc. I think it varies. For example, for colleges that have DIV I sports, I think the ranks given so far under ranks athletics. On the other hand, as written here we don't know what varsity means. Is the person really good in HS bball and tennis (recruit worthy) or just made the team in a mediocre league. For an average player I think it is a kind of hook, for a top player it is a good hook, at Div I schools, and less so at Div III or non sports oriented places.</p>
<p>This totally depends on which schools you're applying to and when. Every top school probably tries to have a decent amount of people who fit into each of these categories, if possible. That said, some top schools have more money than others, and I'm assuming that, when you say legacy, you mean legacy who donates to the school, since that certainly makes a difference and, to my knowledge, is a lot of the reason this counts. At Harvard, which has the biggest endowment of all non-profit organizations, let alone colleges, I would guess that something like legacy would mean a whole lot less. The recently closed Antioch had an endowment of about $36mil and basically had to admit legacies whereas Grinnell College, with a similar student size but the largest endowment for LACs, had 1.5bil in 2006. They can clearly be a lot more picky in this respect. </p>
<p>That said, at a top school with a hefty endowment (basically Harvard type), I expect the following groups to be the most difficult to fill, and thus the most helpful in admissions:</p>
<ol>
<li> URM Native American (obviously w/ decent stats) I feel like, in general, the Native American perspective is soo seldom represented at schools, and in general, the most unique. Part of the purpose of having diversity is to expand the whole student body's horizons and bring in new perspectives. I go to a very diverse, metropolitan public high school (roughly 30%hispanic, 30%black, 30%white and 10%asian). I've met only a handful of Native Americans (who grew up on reservations) and their insight and experiences always opened my mind.<br></li>
<li> low income and first-generation student (though it likely depends on race and other factors)</li>
<li> URM black/hispanic</li>
<li> professionally published work, though it depends on where. If someone has had an article published in the Post or Times, or a poem or story published in the New Yorker, that definitely jumps to the top of the list. The circulation of the publication, along with whether the applicant wrote it by themselves (versus with a researcher as part of a project that the student only helped out with) makes a big difference.<br></li>
<li> Disability- again, relative. For me, having had cancer recently definitely helped as a hook, but I doubt that it would've been helpful had any number of small things been different. Assuming that the disability is one where it's the first thing any given person on the street notices about a person, I'd rank it 5th.<br></li>
<li> born in exotic country, depending on whether they're an int'l student (generally taken as a plus at schools, and int'l students generally have to pay their own way), which countries they've lived in (If they spent half of their life in third-world nations, seeing poverty/war firsthand on a regular basis, they clearly bring a more unique perspective and have likely been more challenged than someone who switched between wealthy western European countries)
After that, these all seem like things you would want to mention and that would pretty much function as relatively strong ECs, but not that would be hooks.</li>
</ol>
<p>hikids has it exactly right. Different schools have different admissions goals and targets, so something that's an admissions advantage at one school can be next to meaningless at another. Some schools pride themselves on not giving significant preferences to athletes; others believe that legacies should not get an advantage; and at the vast majority of schools, being low-income is a disadvantage.</p>
<ol>
<li>Double legacy + Grandparent Legacy (All universities want there legacies)</li>
<li>Low income 1st generation (urm, including filipino)</li>
<li>ATHLETE! i love how people for get about the athletes. They literally have "minimum requirements" to meet.</li>
<li>PROFESSIONALLY published work (Though this isn't really a hook, just something really good that would go here or at # 2)</li>
<li>Born from exotic area/ very multicultural</li>
<li>Native American/Black/Hispanic </li>
<li>Legacy Single/ related to staff</li>
<li>low income, 1st generation</li>
<li>Disability????</li>
<li>Sibling at school</li>
</ol>
<p>-TASP and RSI are definitely not hooks. They just have their own complex screening processes so people who get into them also have the ability to get in top tier schools.</p>