Location: Indiana. Home to race cars, college basketball, pigs, and corn.
Posts: 553
I was the leader of the USSR.
My extracurriculars included glasnost, perestroika, and reinstating the national legislature.
I appeared in a Pizza Hut commercial.
Wait does ESL mean English was not his/her FIRST language or not his/her PRIMARY language. I'm sure there are people who immigrated from other countries at a young age and have no trouble speaking English, but the language would not be their first.
ESL means English as a SECOND Language. Even though young children may learn English easily as a child, their parents may never or not as quickly learn. I know a lot of people at school, Asians especially, who emigrated young and speak English fluently without an accent. Many of their parents, however, do not have a good command of the language. This is why I think these people should be commended even more for mastering English, if they are not hearing it at home/not the primary language at home.
-URM (Hispanic(Spain)/white)
-Low-Income (Less than 30K/yr)
-Crappy school that doesn't have many APs (and avg SAT is less than 900, 40% on free/reduced lunch); looks like that school from "Dangerous Minds", LOL
-IEP(special ed), but still on top (Rank 8th in my class and highest SAT)
-First generation college(in my ENTIRE family)
-Languages Spoken(in order of fluency): English, Spanish, Italian, Latin
I'm not centering my entire app around those, but I will incorporate them.
Last edited by runningncircles1; 09-11-2005 at 04:35 AM.
The problem with this board is that people have been trying to mold themselves into hooks when they really aren't one. Be yourself. If you like painting pictures 40 hours a week, do that. If you like to build robots late at night, do that. If you like helping underprivileged children, do that. Don't do something just to get in to college. So many people I know just hoard awards and merit JUST to put on their college application. Do what you want to do! That is a small hook--to not be phony.
Ever since people have heard about "hooks" at big colleges, they have been scouring for lives, looking for a small commitment that they can blow out of proportion into a hook. I'm not talking about minorities and low-income; I'm talking about the rest who stack up awards and try to make them into a hook. Now, some of you really do stack up awards, and do enjoy what you are doing. That's great. But these people are probably too concerned with what they are doing to say "is this a hook?"
Getting turned town by a top school is not the end of the world: YOU are what determines who you will be, not a college. Some of the brightest people, even some of the Ivy professors, did not go to an Ivy-league college for undergrad. The point is, be optimistic; be yourself on your application and don't worry about hooks. If you don't get in to Harvard undergrad, try again for grad school.
medicine is not a hook at harvard. there are thousands of pre-meds who apply there every year. unless you did something exceptional in the field of health, it is actually a disadvantage
born in pakistan, moved to the U.S. when I was 13.
had to learn everything about how high schools work myself. My parents still have no clue what IB Diploma, GPA, SAT, ACT, ECs etc are. My parents are highly educated (dad was a lawyer in Pakistan, mom did Bachelors in Poli Sci), but they don't speak English in public for some reason.
So I started a program telling immigrant parents about stuff that they should know, coz I didn't want other students to have to learn it themselves.
I raised $30,000 for tsunami victims, and was covered by Voice of America.
As far as hooks are concerned, Im betting a LOT on my unique circumstances. My mother supports my brother and myself as a waitress on $19,500 (poverty level) and my father is a three time ex-convict. My grades are just so-so, top 3% of class, I have taken more AP's than anyone in my class, and I have raised money to go on mission trips to third-world countries as well as extensive comunity service at home, BUT my SAT's are a mere 2000 (I am retaking them, but I don't know how much they will go up). Will my hook really help me overcome my poor test scores?
