<p>lolcats4, I just saw that you had applied to Pomona...I think you're a great fit for them. And, if you choose to go, you get to be classmates with my son who also has "it"! Check out the 2013 Facebook group for a flavor of whose already been accepted.</p>
<p>does growing up with and taking care of an autistic sibling count as a hook somewhat? I wrote my essay about that but related it to a specific event where I learned from my sibling.</p>
<p>^^^ Not a hook, but important for adcoms to consider when evaluating overall picture of you.</p>
<p>There's this story of a guy from my school who graduated a few years back... he's in Harvard right now. What I'm told is, he discovered a new species of moss.</p>
<p>Before I get mobbed for suggesting anything... no, you don't need to discover a new species of moss to get into Harvard. But it helps.</p>
<p>^^^funny, a girl in my son's school was accepted to Yale with almost the same story. I'm pretty sure that discovering a heretofore unknown enzyme might have had just a little bit to do with her acceptance.</p>
<p>Okay kids, you heard it here first...get busy uncovering new types of mosses and enzymes! (How would someone even go about doing this???)</p>
<p>I posted this years ago, but my neighbor was the Dean of Admissions for a selective college. He said that a first read on the apps put them into three piles: Immediate YES (small number of apps), Immediate NO (a larger number of apps) and the Need-to-make-a-decision-pile (most of the apps). He said that in the discussion, if the committee started referring to you by a nickname, you were probably in (meaning, there was something about you that made you unique).</p>
<p>For example, if your passion was bats, and that came out in your ECs, like a bat-related project, an award associated with bat work, a published article about bats, etc., then people might start referring to you as the "Bat-Girl." </p>
<p>Of course this argues against having a long laundry list of EC's. No nickname there.</p>
<p>When my son went for interviews, he found out that people had started referring to him as "The Animation Guy" (due to the fact that he submitted an animated film as one thing to illustrate his passion. He would go to an interview, and he would hear, "Oh yeah, you're the Animation Guy!" He got in.</p>