<p>Do these two factors play any role in admissions? e.g. a hook? To be specific non-religious/prestigious schools.</p>
<p>I would highly doubt it. I’m gay and never considered it any kind of a “hook,” although I did write two of my supplemental essays about coming out.</p>
<p>By sexuality, I assume you mean sexual orientation.</p>
<p>Not a hook. </p>
<p>Like anything else that makes you stand out, it depends on how you present it and how it might link in to the rest of your application. For instance, just being gay is not going to do much if anything for you at a highly selective school, but if you have a long history of participation in gay rights activities and write a compelling essay related to that part of your life, it could help make you a memorable candidate.</p>
<p>Do you really think that your orientation or religion are anything special that a college would care about? if not, it’s not a hook.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges choose not even to receive the religion data from your Common App.</p>
<p>As for sexuality… not really.</p>
<p>Well yeah i basically already knew the answer, but I saw a Chance me thread on Brown saying that being gay was a hook and I didnt know how that would even count as one. thanks for the clarification</p>
<p>Whether religious affiliation matters can be checked on section C7 on the school’s common data set.</p>
<p>“but I saw a Chance me thread on Brown saying that being gay was a hook”</p>
<p>And that poster was mistaken. Period. LGBT status frankly, isn’t very uncommon. Therefore, why would any school purposely grant advantage to it when many qualified LGBT applications come in?</p>
<p>Fails the common sense test.</p>
<p>“LGBT status frankly, isn’t very uncommon”</p>
<p>Actually, it is quite a bit less common than URMs, which are most certainly considered hooks. However, I do agree that it is not a hook.</p>
<p>Except for colleges controlled by churches or religious foundations, your religion is not considered at all as a factor in admission, and even a majority of those schools controlled by religious organizations give it little or no consideration. I have also seen some claiming that sexuality is a hook at some colleges but it is not true.</p>
<p>I’ve heard Penn’s looking for LGBT students, but it could just be a rumor.</p>
<p>If you DO things for either of those, it’s great. President of your school’s GSA, involved in statewide anti-DOMA legislation? Great! Not better than being involved in activism for any other political issue, but not less so either. Same for religion: are you involved in the Catholic Students’ Association? Did you start a blog about how to be a good high school student while faithful to your religion that has 10,000 followers? Great! Again, not better than other sorts of extracurriculars, but also not worse. Just being a member of a religion or having a certain sexual orientation won’t help you, but doing stuff related to it will.</p>
<p>wizkhalifa1: UPenn caused controversy because they made a decision to enlist on-campus LGBT orgs to assist them with the reach out to admitted freshmen, hoping to get them to matriculate. This would be similar to athletes trying to convince admitted recruits to attend. This is hardly evidence that Penn is “looking” for LGBT students. Rather, they are looking for GREAT applicants. The fact that some will be LGBT and they will then tailor their outreach towards these students – is smart, IMHO.</p>
<p>got the message already haha</p>