I don’t think “hook” applies, but I believe there are characteristics that can help in international admissions.
First, internationals should understand that they are competing with other internationals, not with the entire pool of applicants. They should also understand that international acceptance rates are significantly lower than acceptance rates for U.S. nationals, as low as 25% of U.S. rates. It’s very difficult to get transparent and accurate information on internationals – how many applied, how many were accepted, how many enrolled – but if you’re persistent and do on-line research you can identify which colleges are most international friendly and which are not.
Colleges don’t have a specific quota by country, but they do have a general target for the total number of internationals that they will admit, based on their projected yield and the targeted enrolment percentage. In very general terms they admit by country and by region – so many from China, so many from India, so many from Europe etc. The goal is a wide geographic spread.
Within this geographic diversity, they also look for diversity in race, ethnicity, economic status, religion. International student numbers are not used in the colleges’ official diversity figures (e.g., the Common Data Sets) but international students are perceived to contribute to cultural diversity which is important just about everywhere.
The flip side of the diversity coin is ability to pay. Private colleges have a budget to fund international students. (Public colleges may or may not offer financial aid to internationals.) Need-aware colleges know in advance how much a student applying for financial aid is going to cost them. Need-blind schools have to guess, but they’re good guessers, and applications are full of economic clues. Their goal is to have a balance of international full pay and aid supported students. As far as I know colleges don’t publish the breakdown, and each has its own formula, but you can be sure that full pay internationals are an increasingly lucrative source of income.
Colleges want to admit internationals and are willing to fund some of them, sometimes quite generously. My advice would be: Do extensive research on international admissions rates; Use your application to articulate how your background and life story could contribute to the campus community; Cast a wide net; Apply early decision (unless your top choice prohibits it).