<p>Hunt, I think winning a Nobel Prize would be a definite hook. One thing to turn down a kid who’s merely climbed Everest or written a novel–that’s a dime a dozen. But a Nobel? I’d love to see a college turn down a laureate. Heck, that student could actually have free parking on campus at Berkeley as an undergrad! :D</p>
<p>Though maybe they’d be applying in the wrong major. I can just imagine the adcom discussion: “Well, her work in Econ is top-notch, but it says here that she’s applying as a chem major. I’m just not seeing anything in her application that shows that she’s really interested in chemistry.” Or “Sure, he got the literature Nobel, but just look at his score on the writing part of the SAT. Just not at the level we expect of our students.” Or “Really, she’s actually applying for financial aid? What’s the matter, did the check from the Academy fail to clear? Sheesh, the nerve of some people!”</p>
<p>Pleaseadvise, I see no surprise admissions in your DD’s list. She wasn’t top of pool for a few, but totally in range and full pay coming from out of state/country which is huge. Top 10% puts the 3.5 in context, she went to a relatively grade deflated high schools. I’ve sent students to all of these schools with considerably lower stats.</p>
<p>And you surely do exaggerate about the UCs, the average accepted SAT at the top ones is nowhere near 2300, it’s about 2050. And the 4 point something could be half Bs in the highly grade inflated CA public schools that add a full point for both honor and AP classes while their average students are getting below 3 on the tests.</p>
<p>I agree that a Nobel Prize will get you in. I’m just saying that I don’t define it as a “hook.” It’s an impressive personal achievement–and that’s not what a hook is (except, for whatever reason, for athletic achievements).</p>
<p>sorry, point taken, you are correct. I guess I digressed thinking about how much do all the tips, hooks or whatever help anyway even if you get into a great school these days. Will stay on topic henceforth.</p>
<p>Waverly, parchment.com shows lots of red dots (rejections) on the graph that plots GPA UW 3.6 vs. Average SAT Score 700-720 for both UCLA and Berkeley. And yes, i suspect you are correct about being full pay OOS as an advantage since the schools were well-aware (if they chose to be) we did not file a FAFSA or whatever they call it these days. BTW, even if I take your 2050 as an average admit score, it is still a pretty high score; it means many kids w/average SATs in the very high 600s are being turned down.</p>
<p>I’d argue that there are some incredible exceptional personal achievements that are hooks, e.g. LasMa’s citing of Brooke Shields at Princeton as something that adds additional press coverage for the school. A teenaged Nobel laureate would fall in the same category. It’s a silly non-real-world example (dare I say it’s an academic discussion? ), because it’s far easier to be a teenaged famous actor than a teenaged Nobel laureate.</p>
<p>and we are talking rejection vs. admit not at HYPS, but Berkeley and UCLA. Some students, not merely a few, w/700s on the SAT sections are being turned down at select UC campuses (add UCSD here). Campuses that enroll 6,000 or so freshman per year, not a small elite LACs. It just doesn’t seem fair to me.</p>
<p>This is a great question! Does anyone think Living overseas, both Germany and Japan then surviving a yr long deployment and then again with deployments much of high school while maintaining outstanding grades is a hook? Also D’13 is an intern, one of only 12 that were competitively selected at a Marine lab that she commutes 2hrs to at least 4x a month. D plans to major in marine bio.</p>
<p>@HUNT “agree that a Nobel Prize will get you in. I’m just saying that I don’t define it as a “hook.” It’s an impressive personal achievement–and that’s not what a hook is (except, for whatever reason, for athletic achievements).”</p>
<p>I can attest to the fact that athletic achievements are likely not a ‘hook’ unless it is a recruited sport at the school or a sport that gets TV air time (e.g. ice skating). D is on a USA National Team in a somewhat unconventional non-recruited sport and it didn’t help with Stanford - all other numbers well in range. It speaks to her personal qualities; but, as someone above said, does not have actual value to the university. Stanford tallies the Olympic Gold Medals and trumpets that number at half time on football games; but I guess unlike those other things that can be readily grouped and quantified in brochures, special talent that doesn’t directly serve them and cannot be easily reported sinks to the level of an interesting EC. I thought it might at least be a ‘tip’, but no.</p>
<p>I understand that for the very selective schools, only recruited athletes are considered to have a hook. But what about small, moderately selctive LAC’s? If an applicant is an athlete who could definately add to a college team, couldn’t that be somewhat of a hook? I ask this because my S is a swimmer and we have researched schools where he would fit in academically, but also would be a competitive member of the swim team. We are hoping that it might help gain admission to a school that otherwise might be less than impressed with the rest of his application.</p>
<p>^^ @pizzagirl: I’m not sure if you are implying that I said D’s particular situation was “unfair”. I’ve looked back through the posts and I cannot find one, mine or others’, where people have sad that standard hooks or specific institutional hooks are unfair. Whether we like them or not, they are what they are. The issue is, do we understand what they are and how they work. This thread is about understanding not arguing specific merits of institutional policies. My point is that an achievment that seems great to most who know of it may not rise to the level of a hook if it cannot be quantified in a way that adds value to the institution. We didn’t know that as clearly before, and we know that now.</p>
<p>think pizzagirl was questioning me. No numbers do not trump everything. However, it seems a bit strange to me that SO MANY applicants w/ UW GPAs of 3.6 and Average SAT section scores of 700-720 are being rejected by UCLA and Berkeley. Go to parchment.com and click on the scatterplot graph for those universities and you will see a plethora of red dots in that intersection of the graph. I mean, it is not just an outlier of one, two or three applicants. there is a lot of red(=rejection) mixed in w/the blue (accepted) and green (attending). I would admit maybe it is an artifact of self-reporting to an extent, but there are so many data points–not everyone can be submitting false data. In fact go to almost any top tier non-Ivy school (e.g. Vanderbilt, U of Chicago, etc.) and you will find an awful lot of kids w/SATs averaging over 2100 (700 for each section) being rejected. U of Chicago I can understand, even Vandy, but UCLA and Berkeley–particularly for in-state residents whose parents pay taxes supporting those schools? BTW because of the budget crunch and difficulty getting all the required classes, some UC students really need 5 years to graduate now. MY D is graduating from UMich in 3 years (worked her rear off)–no way she could have done that at a UC. Her final choice came down to UM vs. UCLA–she certainly is happy w/her choice.</p>
<p>in fact for UCLA and Berkeley the vast majority of applicants w/those stats seem to be rejected. Maybe parchment is not reliable, I dunno. If they were horribly wrong, i doubt their website would survive or be as popular as it seems to be.</p>
<p>If you go to [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) , you will find that Berkeley and UCLA applicants needed pretty high GPA and test scores to get admitted in the recent past (2009 is the latest year that they have). 3.6 GPA is pretty low by Berkeley and UCLA standards of a few years ago.</p>
:D</p>