<p>@happy1:</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t understand where you get the idea that most applicants have hooks. What do you consider hooks? “Ordinary” achievement in ECs aren’t hooks. </p>
<p>However, I will say that strong essays can be as good as a hook, but few essays are that strong. Most are banal.</p>
<p>Also, at some schools, applying ED gives you as much boost as a hook.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan – My mistake…I meant to say only a small number of applicants have hooks. Apologies. I meant the post to encourage you to focus on all of your strengths and find schools that are good fits.</p>
<p>Do anything you can to make your application stand out, including a music supplement (or art or photography or whatever else you are good at).</p>
<p>I’ve told this story here before (can’t find it), but this is the lesson we learned with our unhooked white (2340, salutatorian) daughter. She didn’t think she was a good enough musician to do a supplement, but when she got to Wellesley and did her piano and voice audition to be placed in lessons, the people on the music faculty asked her why she hadn’t done a music supplement. (The ad coms ask the art faculty to review portfolios, etc. and to weigh in on the student’s talent or accomplishments, so they would have seen hers if she had done one.) In my daughter’s mind, being good meant you had to have played at Carnegie Hall, but that was not the case at all. </p>
<p>The ad coms want to know if you are vertical in anything, rather than broad in everything. Well-rounded doesn’t cut it. D thinks maybe her bland (but accomplished) application was the reason Stanford rejected her. If you are going for a school with a very low acceptance rate, don’t fall into the “I’m good at everything” trap. Show them one thing you are excellent at, passionate about, and have allowed to shape you. Oh, and have some good matches and a safety on your list!</p>
<p>Isn’t applying ED is sort of like a hook?</p>
<p>Applying ED is an advantage at most schools. However, it makes very little difference at the very top schools. Some only have Early Action. The admissions officer who spoke at our info session at Brown, where they do have ED, pointed out that although the numbers would lead you to believe that a higher percentage are admitted ED, this number includes all of the legacies and recruited athletes. For the unhooked student it doesn’t help much.</p>