Personal life trauma/overcome severe adversity (adopted, death of family member, cancer, poverty, disadvantaged, living with crippling disease, etc.)</p>
<p>Basically, I am asking if an applicant does not possess one or more of these qualities, he or she would not be accepted into an Ivy league or equally excellent university.</p>
<p>Please provide an answer.
Thank you</p>
<p>Edit: The purpose of this question is not to “chance” me, for I am currently attending ninth grade. I only wish to obtain general knowledge of which qualities universities typically prefer during application evaluations.</p>
<p>EDIT: Uh, no. There’s still hope. If you really go above and beyond, Ivys would still want you.</p>
<p>Personal example: one of my billions of cousins went to Harvard and he was Asian, no 4.0, nothing top nationally, nor internationally. He did a lot of research and systems designing (he helped design the LG Prada phone) and that impressed adcoms enough.</p>
<p>You don’t need a hook. Hooks are generally understood to be legacies, underrepresented minorities, and athletic recruits. Being a genius isn’t really a hook, although the stuff you mentioned are impressive for extracurriculars, given that they have some direction. Personal trauma can make for a compelling essay topic, but it still depends how you deliver it. You still have to demonstrate something about yourself through your essay, which doesn’t necessitate a “big” topic.</p>
<p>Also, does the significance overcoming obstacles vary according to the situation’s degree of severity?</p>
<p>example:
Living in a single parent household from early childhood while maintaining a 4.0 average, some science competition awards, actively participating in academic clubs, occupying several major officer positions, and exhibiting commitment in extensive volunteer experience pales when compared to a candidate with fewer/less impressive accomplishments but has a deceased parent who died from cancer.</p>
<p>I understand that this may be a bizarre question, but universities do consider trauma to be a factor, right?</p>
<p>Nope. These schools want diversity in almost every manner, and while those three “hooks” contribute diversity to a school, they are not all that they are looking for. For example, I embody none of the listed qualities. Maybe a better question to ask (while vague) would be, “has the applicant made a significant difference in some way?”</p>
<p>It’s more of a “what did the trauma do to him/her” than the actual trauma. If the kid founded a successful national organization off of this event, it can be a HUGE plus. More so than many of the stock hooks, I’ll daresay.</p>
Poverty, divorce, and death of a loved one are not extracurriculars. Adcoms are not looking at applications like this.</p>
<p>Personal trauma can, but doesn’t have to, be used in an essay to demonstrate how you have grown from it. Besides that it doesn’t play a significant factor. Competitive schools look at every application holistically, as well, meaning they look at ECs in the context of grades and score and quality of the essay. A lot of people set up hypothetical situations but the truth is that two applicants are never really “compared.”</p>
<p>Poor idea? No. But how much it will help you is dubious. Random clubs, even leadership and founding positions, are very common these days, and adcoms tend to look for more interesting and unique forms of leadership (and more legitimate, since a lot of “leadership” positions in clubs these days are mere sinecures–not that yours would be, but it’s just not that impressive). You could probably more constructively spend that time developing a more interesting EC.</p>
<p>Living in a single parent household is common these days, hardly an exceptional obstacle to doing well. While having a parent die is tragic, you’re not going to get into an Ivy because the admins feel sorry for you. If you lost one leg to a land mine in a worn-torn country, just learned English 5 years ago, and manage to keep up top grades while working 40 hours a week and living in a homeless shelter, sure THEN you’ve got a remarkable story that should get you a decent shot at the acceptance list.</p>
<p>Sorry about the lack of an explanation.
I am pursuing a future career in neuroscience and neurosurgery.<br>
The club will serve to assist students who are interested in studying medicine
-provide information on various medical fields/associated work
-expose them to actual medical work opportunities in hospitals
-job shadows
-medical clubs/programs in hospitals
-offer information on internships
-guide pupils to hospital volunteering opportunities
-educate the school on health issues via arrangement of schoolwide events
-organize fundraisers to support specific medical research</p>