NYC Moms/Dads: Is It Possible to Get Into HYP From NYC Without a Hook?

[cheers]

Looking for opinions on whether or not NYC parents and students think it's possible to be a 'virgin' admit to HYP from NYC.

[marny1]

My favorite "Metro NY success story" is the cheerleader getting into Columbia. Just one of those bright kids with no real hook- but her EC activity was cheerleading. She did it- because she enjoyed it and not because she thought it would get her into an Ivy. But Columbia- as all other Ivies, have sports teams and they need cheerleaders.
The kid's stats were very good ("A" student with 1400 + SAT (old scoring)- but not extraordinary. But as Columbia needed real solid students who had cheerleading experience she was a fairly unique candidate for Columbia as cheerleading is not a real popular EC with incoming Columbia students.
So you never know - what gets you into HYP (or Columbia-Penn-Cornell etc)

I also believe that a little bit of luck plays a role in college admission. Especially for kids in overrepresented areas like NYC-Boston etc.

[HeliMomNYC]

Not sure what you mean by "hook"...I personally don't believe any kid from anywhere gets into HYP without something about them being extraordinary. One of S's good friends is 1st-generation college, Asian who speaks five or more languages and is at the top of every class he takes. That was hook enough for Yale, but it's not like he is an athlete, legacy or development admission. He's just brilliant. Yale got it right.

[sybbie719]

Of course, when you think about the large # of kids at these schools from the North East/New England states with the majority of those kids coming from MA/NY(and NYC most represented segment of NYers making NYC kids over represented and it is harder to come from NYC).

As you know NYC has one of the largest public school systems in the country and the pretty good number of students from, Stuy, BX Science, Tech, Hunter, and the other NYC magnets each year, not to mention prep schools that consistently send kids to HYP each year. The pool is a very competitive one and the majority of these students are probably unhooked. My kid attended a small NYC public magnet that graduates less than 100 students but consistently sends kids to the ivies including HYP each year (the overwhelming majority of students are probably BWRKs)

[collegekid100]

NO. Think about it. The huge number of applicants from many of the best prep schools in the Country, the vast wealth and huge number of power families.

Sure they'll take a first gen perfect stats kid sometimes, but in the NY pool being low income is half way to a hook.

Sybbie, are you talking about white and asian kids?

[koolmaria139]

Sybbie, what is A BWRK?

[JHS]

Philadelphia is not as competitive as New York, but it's not uncompetitive, either. Unhooked kids get in to HYP all the time. Being one of the best students at a really strong, well known school -- public or private -- doesn't guarantee admission, of course, but it guarantees a hard look. Some of those kids have other hooks, but lots don't, and a decent number of them get admitted. Thinking of the kids in my children's classes who were accepted at HYPS, it's about 50-50 between kids with some sort of hook and kids whose only hook was being really great kids. (By the way, I'm treating URM status as a hook, so the unhooked are all white or Asian.) If you don't regard legacy status as a hook (since, without massive dollars, I'm not sure it really makes a difference at HYPS), then the proportion looks more like 80-20.

[mathmom]

We're in the suburbs not the city. But the kid who got into Princeton didn't have a real hook. He's an excellent violin player, but not going to be world famous. No athletics at all. Some state level Science Olympiad medals. Not a legacy.

[marny1]

Koolmaria-

BWRK= Bright Well Rounded Kid

[koolmaria139]

thanks marny1!

[grantedin]

As Marny1 said sometimes BWRKs happened to have what HYPS are looking for at the time. I heard one of Ivy schools was looking for a student who plays Tuba because their band member who played Tuba was a senior and graduating. One of the BWRKs happened to play Tuba and he got accepted. I know one student who got into Harvad a couple of years ago. She was a great pianist who toured foreign countries and invited to join an orchestra in Boston upon her acceptance to Harvad. I guess they have to be extra ordinary in some ways to get accepted to HYPS...

[holymomma]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/ed...068b68&ei=5070

I know it used to be said that Stuyvesant High School (the competitive admission PUBLIC school in NYC mentioned in the article) sent more kids to Harvard that any other high school in the country, but I'm not sure if that's true anymore.

[collegekid100]

Philly is not a close comparison. In NY you have all the ibanker kids, all the many industry kids, loads of old money, top day schools (can anyone who doesn't live there name me one in Philly?) and a billion times the dev candidates. How many kids is each going to take from NY?

[cheers]

I'm trying to define 'hook' and decide how the term 'hook' filtered into college admissions. I thought it was a hollywood term but perhaps it comes fromt he musical term

A hook is a musical idea, a passage or phrase, that is believed to be catchy and helps the song stand out, it is, "meant to catch the ear of the listener" (Covach 2005, p.71). This term generally applies to popular music, especially pop music.

Etymologists?

[holymomma]

Hook (rhetoric)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A hook in rhetoric is a rhetorical device that gets the attention of the audience and makes them want to listen to the rest of the speech. Hooks can often be metaphors, playing on emotional appeal. They can be a series of intriguing questions. They can also be a number of other devices, so long as they "hook" the reader into wanting more.