<p>I've been on CC for a while and I've heard numerous people talk about having hooks. What exactly is a hook? Also, someone told me that my hook would be that I went through a diagnosis for cancer (though it ended up being benign, it was a very very rare tumor). Would this be considered a hook?</p>
<p>Most people on CC refer to hooks as anything that will grab the admissions attention and really help boost your chances of getting in. URM are hooks, winning national competitions can be hooks, athletic recruits, terminal illnesses, anything that really grabs attention can be a hook. Your cancer, if you discuss it in your essay and it actually impacted your outlook on life or your high school experience, can be considered a hook.</p>
<p>Usually a hook is something you have that a college desires. Examples are: affiliation with a race/ethnicity/socio-economic status that will increase the schools diversity; an athletic ability that would add to the school’s team; a huge (think paying for a building) financial contribution; in some places legacy status. Other things, like what you went through, can serve to make an applicant stand out in a positive way and, therefore, more likely to be admitted, but are not considered hooks.</p>
<p>A hook is something the college needs. Athletes, high donating parents, even famous parents, yes. Cancer survivor, no. Those make you interesting, but not a hook.</p>
<p>ppd,</p>
<p>When you have a great search term like ‘hook’, the Search function works really well. I like Sikorsky’s explaination:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1386410-what-exactly-hook.html?highlight=hook[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1386410-what-exactly-hook.html?highlight=hook</a></p>
<p>I may have misinterpreted your original post (I’m terribly sorry if I did), but didn’t you say the tumor was “benign”? Aren’t moles also benign tumors? I mean, the process you went through (I’d be really depressed if I were diagnosed with cancer) may certainly make a good essay topic, but, and I hate to sound this crude, if you didn’t actually have mestasizable cancer, I really don’t think it’ll provide an anchor or completely new slant for you. It’ll certainly make you more interesting, but I don’t think flaunting it would work as well as it would with economic or racial barriers (however fair or unfair that may seem).</p>
<p>“Hooks” are generally non-academic characteristics that you are born with or into, such as being born to an alumni parent (“legacy”), or being a member of a racial or ethnic group that the college wants (“URM”), or being a born to a large donating parent (“developmental”). Of course, how desirable to the school these are depends on the school (some schools may not consider them at all, and the legacy one would only apply to the few schools that your parents attended).</p>
<p>The only “hook” that is heavily dependent on your own effort and achievement is being an athlete that the school recruits you for.</p>
<p>(The fairness or not of using “hooks” in college admissions is something that can be debated forever.)</p>
<p>So both URM and first generation are hooks, but together are they less impacting because it is more assumed that a URM will also be a first gen?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t assume that a URM is first gen to college or that first gen is a URM. Many URMs have parents who attended college and grad school. And many non-URMs have parents who did not attend college. The URM category is about race. The first gen is about socio-economic status.</p>
<p>Anything that really makes you unique. For example, my essay is about my Sikh religion and being the only Sikh in my school.</p>
<p>I definitely understand what you are saying, I just wanted to understand what a hook was.</p>
<p>Also, the type of tumor I had was very very rare. One in every forty thousand get the type that I had, but an even rarer amount get it the size, in the location, and at the age that I did.</p>
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<p>This pretty much sums it up. Your parents’ income (generally it’s good to be at one of the financial extremes), what state you live in, and even your sex (e.g. females have an easier time getting into Engineering programs, as do males with Education) are also big ones.</p>
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<p>I find that people tend to support preferences for hooks if they’re given an advantage by them and to oppose them if they aren’t. For instance, Asian students seem much less likely to support such practices than black students. The only exception I can think of to this rule is legacy status.</p>
<p>I agree with all the previous posts. </p>
<p>Hooks to me come into play mostly with the most selective colleges. GPA, class rank, test scores provide the basic entry requirements. Hooks are what get you admitted. If you want to get into a tough school you will need one.</p>
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<p>You won’t necessarily need one, but it’ll help. Curing cancer or even having placed highly in some national or international competitions can mean a lot more than being black, though sometimes it seems that hooks trump all.</p>
<p>I’m applying as a transfer to U of Michigan from one of their satellite campuses. For my hook, I proclaimed my interest in their Armenian Studies concentration. I am Armenian, so I guess that was my “hook”.</p>
<p>The hook has to have bait on it to be any good and the bait has to be of the sort that interests the given college. A juicy football quarterback hook isn’t going to get you in a school without a football team, for example. Usually, in terms of highly selective college admissions, the word is “flag”. The admissions office flags certain applications and they are read and evaluated separately from the rest of the crowd, often just within its own category. FOr example, recruited athletes will be pulled and an adcom will discuss the picks with the athletic director and those decisions will be made without going through the usual channels. Alumni flags are often evaluated in their own pool as are URMs. Those accepted in those pool have a greater chance than the hordes going through the regular process where the admissions staff are looking to cut rather than to admit out of necessity. Some of these pools can have a 50% accept chance at schools with chances aroung 10% overall. </p>
<p>The word “hook” has become over used as it is often used for attributes that must might be somewhat different than most applicants but are not necessarily something a college wants to give special consideration. Still it could be a factor of interest and the “tip” (another term) factor in getting an accepance.</p>
<p>cato: what you guess is your “hook” veers from what UoM would say is a hook – and it’s their opinion that matters. Good luck though</p>