<p>The fact of the matter is every student has a "hook"</p>
<p>everybody is different you just go share what makes you different</p>
<p>just because someone isn't a recruited basketball player doesn't mean that they don't have a "hook"</p>
<p>stop blaming the schools for rejections its not going to get you anywhere</p>
<p>A hook means a factor that colleges need not want. Hence, being a recruited athlete is a hook. Being a URM is a hook.</p>
<p>You’re talking about just being special. And you think everyone is special? But that defeats the purpose of the word, special.</p>
<p>Your statement is false, I don’t think you understand what a hook is.</p>
<p>I go to a top university</p>
<p>and a lot of students here have done great things in high school</p>
<p>Also being a good student at a good high school is enough to get into a top university</p>
<p>That is not a hook though… simply being a good student isn’t a hook.</p>
<p>I guess you just want to post in order to stir argument, eh? When you are the admissions director with policy making impunity of a super-selective school, then come and tell us that everyone has “hooks” as you define them.</p>
<p>You’re talking through your hat. If you think that colleges don’t have priority needs, you’re naive. And if you think that these top colleges can just go out into the street and sweep these “hooked” people in, you’re also not very savvy. </p>
<p>And if you think that this means everyone in the applicant pool – well, let’s hope your career aspirations are not to work in college admissions or human resources.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Clearly not. Tens of thousands of top students are rejected from Ivy league and top 20 schools each year.</p>
<p>^a “top” university can mean many schools outside of the Ivies and top 20. There are thousands of schools, should the top be the best 50%, or 10%?</p>
<p>Probably up there dude. 50th percentile is never considered the top.</p>
<p>My guess is the majority of the incoming classes at Ivy/Ivy Peer Schools consists of ‘unhooked’ students as this term is used.</p>
<p>Similarly, many hooked students are rejected by these schools every year – a hook isn’t a guaranty.</p>
<p>OP is right, every student is unique and at the top schools, admitees are exceptional. However, I believe that most admissions officers would admit that people with a ‘hook’ (i.e., meet a school’s needs) have a significantly better chance of acceptance than not.</p>
<p>It’s about 50/50. Hooks are very real. That is, the real ones: recruited athlete, Um, legacy, development. Those groups are about 50% at elite schools.</p>
<p>Note that of the characteristics usually regarded as “hooks”, only recruited athlete is something that involves the applicant’s own ability and effort (though it is through exaggerated valuation of performance in an extracurricular, rather than academic desirability), as opposed to the (type of) family that s/he was born into.</p>
<p>Would you characterize females in hard science/engineering as a hook? If so, it’s a mixed, since it depends both on factors within ones control (demonstrated interest/ability in science) + gender</p>
<p>It all depends on the institution. Some colleges may feel that their heavy sci/engineering programs are too male-heavy and may wish to admit more women to those programs.</p>
<p>Conversely, some nursing programs which will favor male applicants over equally qualified female applicants due to the historical paucity of male nursing students. </p>
<p>“Hooks” exist when and if colleges see the need. But not to the extent that the OP seems to believe. </p>
<p>OP says that “everybody has a hook”. In his world, every kid is probably “gifted” or above average… </p>
<p>Using this logic of “everybody having a hook” and it being “stupid” to have preferences and priorities, I suppose his spouse search will just be any breathing human being. Or am I limiting it too much here?</p>
<p>^ Breathing optional?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Or any animate object at all?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s important to note that at elite universities, most of these students would have gotten in regardless of that hook. Rich people get in at higher rates at every school, and legacies tend to be well-off and naturally intelligent (born to successful, educated parents). Development cases are very few in number and most likely the student is well-off and very intelligent and accomplished. URMs, same story - most of the minority students that top universities enroll are relatively well-to-do, and so they’re also naturally intelligent, accomplished, etc. having grown up with the privileges of wealth. And the number of athletes where recruitment may have an influence on admissions is very small at top schools. </p>
<p>Take Stanford for instance: all athletes must be approved first by the admissions office before recruitment can happen, and even then the only sports where admissions might go “easy” on them (given their impressive accomplishments in sports) are football, basketball, and the like. That’s a very small number of students. And even then, the students are pretty smart: there have been several articles about Stanford’s football team being the most academic/intelligent/accomplished - valedictorians, 4.0s, National Merit winners, big awards, etc. The point is that people definitely shouldn’t write off hooked students.</p>
<p>Do you consider low-income/first-generation to be hooks? I don’t, mostly because those entail the evaluation of a student in the context of what he/she was afforded, and the historical data on this doesn’t show it conferring any advantage. But that may be changing (or already has) - it’s impossible to tell what’s a hook and what’s not. As colleges move toward stressing socioeconomic factors in admissions, they move away from race, so perhaps today (or soon) being a low-income/first-gen will be a much bigger advantage than being a URM. I already don’t think being URM matters too much at the tippy-top schools - they have already reached a critical mass of extremely accomplished and desirable minority applicants, so race doesn’t really matter in reaching “target” proportions.</p>
<p>If everyone has a hook, then NO ONE has a hook.</p>
<p>A hook serves the interest of the university. And that hook sets the applicant apart from the thousands of other applicants with high stats and good ECs.</p>
<p>Everybody has a hook so everyone is equal. However, some hooks are more equal than others…</p>