<p>I know how hard it is to get into such competetive schools without truly standing out, but how many normal, plainly smart and hard working people do u think get in each year? By this I mean having good grades, high test scores, good reccomendations and essays along with the usual club leadership roles but w/o ur urm, legacy, crazy research and internships and whatnot.</p>
<p>Me for one. </p>
<p>Public school, no legacy, Asian male with 2260 as highest single sitting. Standard EC’s such as Marching/Concert Band, president of club/service organization, quiz bowl, minor awards, etc.</p>
<p>lol wow we’re pretty similar Gryffon. I was accepted to YS, waitlisted H, rejected P.</p>
<p>Public school, no legacy, Asian (half) male with 2180 as high single sitting (altho I turned in a 34 on ACT). Standard EC’s including Marching/Concert Band, pres of math team, pres of a history team competition thing, VERY minor awards, etc.</p>
<p>I’m sure a lot of people. There are more smart and hard working people in the world than urms/legacies/“crazy internship people”.</p>
<p>I don’t recall where I saw this but I noted that about 1/3 of admittees were “average” i.e. just great kids w/o any spectacular hook. Like Gryffon, I was one too. I’m Asian, got SATS that were lower than the median of the matriculants, went to public school in an urban district. The most rigorous schedule and a 3.85 or so GPA. ECs were just JROTC, Band and employment. I was admitted at all schools applied which was another Ivy and three top engineering schools.</p>
<p>ME! (10 char)</p>
<p>If you go through the answers above, note that we have one person with two hooks - urban public school and engineering and there may be other hooks buried in other responses. (Don’t mean any offense by that but hooks can be other than wealth and alumni connections.) </p>
<p>I don’t know if the original question meant what I took it as: meaning a suburban kid from kind of anywhere USA, somewhere in the upper reaches of the middle class - which is a big range - probably white. When you’re talking about 1200-1300 kids in a Yale class, of course many will fit that profile. They will tend to be very high achievers.</p>
<p>For yale I had the ultimate hookS. Beware of people like me!! ;)</p>
<p>I never really considered this a hook, but I’m first gen and my family makes < 60,000 a year… so I guess I’m not the typical Yale applicant just from that.</p>
<p>It’s important to draw a distinction between hooks and tips.</p>
<p>A hook is an institutional priority – beyond the qualities schools generally look for in their applicants – that can give an applicant a powerful advantage in admissions. The only applicants who have genuine hooks are recruited athletes, URMS, and developmental admits (kids whose parents have contributed or have committed to contribute big, big money). Add possibly the child of a bona fide celebrity (regardless of his/her parents’ developmental prospects) or an applicant who is a celebrity in his/her own right (think actress Emma Watson this year).</p>
<p>Everything else – legacy, geographical and economic diversity, talent, etc. – is, at best, a tip, and far less potent than a hook. Expressing interest in engineering might be a tip factor at Yale, but only if the applicant can back up his/her expressed interest with tangible achievements in math/science.</p>
<p>I recently met with one of Yale’s admissions directors where they presented Case Studies where they put up all the stats, like those we have in the Results Threads, including snippets of Recs and Essays. </p>
<p>However what they did say, explicitly, that specified talent was INDEED a hook like that of a recruited athlete, though, obviously, not as huge. However, in one kid’s case, and many more (an outstanding musician nationally recognized and sent in SUPPLEMENT, academically nothing spectacular), his specialized talent, the admissions guy told us, got him in.</p>
<p>^^Sorry. Not buying that. Musical ability is simply not comparable to athletic ability in the admissions process, and exceptional musical talent is almost never a hook. Someone with the recognized talent of, say, Lang Lang, would be the exception, but the argument could be made that someone at that level is being chosen for celebrity status rather than sheer musical talent. </p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that exceptional musical talent plays no role in the admissions decision. It does play a role, and a student with talent definitely should send a CD with the application. But here’s the difference between a recruited athlete with the support of a coach and a stunning cellist: The cellist has to make it past a certain threshold with respect to grades, scores, and curriculum before the admissions office will forward his CD on to the appropriate department for review. A good rating can help an application, but it won’t have the potency of support from an athletic coach who supports the candidate before the application even hits the admissions office.</p>
<p>At another Ivy my son applied to last year (not Yale), the head of the piano program told him she only reviews about 25% of all the piano CDs that are sent in each year. The rest never make it past Admissions.</p>
<p>what are acceptable stats to pass that threshold?</p>
<p>would 2300+ SAT/800s on SAT Subject/35+ ACT test scores with 3.8+ GPA suffice at an extremely rigorous private school that doesn’t rank? (with excellent essays, recs, and ECs with lots of leadership)</p>
<p>Yes. (10 char)</p>
<p>1234d has a hook–lol, ISEF winner</p>
<p>Do admissions actually look at your family income/salary and if you are under 60,000 or something, will that actually help you get in (somewhat)? I thought they were mostly need-blind or does that only apply for acquiring financial aid?</p>
<p>Also, just in general, would it be beneficial at all to stress (in essays or rec letters or something) that you come from a family with poor economic background to distinguish yourself from the “never any financial worries”/“affluent” applicants?</p>
<p>I don’t remember for sure, but I’m pretty sure there was some place on the application where they asked into which income range you fall.</p>
<p>And yes, making less than $60,000 a year and/or being first gen is a “tip” and will help your application. It shows that you haven’t been handed everything on a silver platter, that you couldn’t afford thousands of dollars for test prep or college counselors, etc etc. I think the biggest thing it shows is that your successes are a result of some internal dynamic within you rather than an external (wealthy) environment that typically fosters success.</p>
<p>As a 2 cents on athletes versus musicians, it’s my impression - without hard data but a lot of anecdotes - that schools overrate athletics and underrate music, with the caveat that if the music person is applying with interest in a field they want kids for, notably math and engineering. And in those cases, it seems to help girls because not only are more girls applying - and going - to schools but they are less likely to apply showing interest in engineering and hard science, which means the odds for girls in humanities are skewed worse. Many schools, including Ivies, bluntly tell you they reserve places for engineers and they are looking for girls.</p>
<p>Tristan wrote: “Do admissions actually look at your family income/salary and if you are under 60,000 or something, will that actually help you get in (somewhat)?”</p>
<p>Admissions will note the economic level of the HS you attend (based on quantitative nos. your school provides). This allows them to place you in the proper context (w/o checking each applicants’ exact income level). For example, say 30% of students at your HS qualify for federally funded reduced/free lunch – and that ~5% of graduates go to 4-year institutions and the drop out rate is about 30% – well this says a lot, no?</p>
<p>Now compare it to a school where ~5% qualify for reduced/free lunch, 11% dropout rate, 60% college attendance for graduates. Vast difference and Yale would infer a lot of different circumstances for the students who attend either school.</p>
<p>BTW, while I applied to top engineering programs, I recall distinctively that I put down “Biology” as a potential major in my Yale app. Looking back, my “tip” was probably I was a high academic achiever and a top student leader in a predominantly black school but I was Chinese – weird circumstances that probably grabbed peoples’ attention. But this is only a guess.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to say that artists and musicians get the same benefits that real hooked applicants (athletes, URMs, etc) get. What I meant is that they do get a boost and probably more of a boost than most of us think, but definitely not that of an athlete. The admissions committee said that the boost was “similar to that of an athlete.”</p>
<p>I have seen a few examples from past threads but here is a guy that probably wouldn’t have gotten in if you had knocked out his art/music ECs, which is post #59 on this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-2012/429458-official-early-action-decision-thread-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-2012/429458-official-early-action-decision-thread-4.html</a></p>
<p>Also does anyone have any examples of portfolios of Yale admits that sent in them?</p>