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<p>“Someone” may have said that, but let’s be quite clear: “someone” actually has no idea what is was that prompted the admissions committee in New Haven to favor him with the thick envelope. He may have a hypothesis, but he has no idea why they actually selected him.</p>
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By that definition, being a grifter, a stripper or a cannibal could be a hook. But none of them should be grounds for admission to a selective university or college.</p>
<p>If a hook is going to be worth anything to the applicant, it has to be worth something to the college. For this reason, the hooks that matter are ones that meet an institutional need or want of a college or university. Colleges need linebackers and they need weathy donors, so being a recruited athlete or coming from a family that can (and would) make an eight-digit donation is a real hook. Many colleges want racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, so coming from an underrepresented minority group or a disadvantaged background would be a hook at those colleges. A lot of colleges also want to enroll celebrities, so if you’re a movie star or the child of a prominent politician, you’re hooked.</p>
<p>But I don’t for one instant believe that having lived abroad confers anything like that kind of a leg up in admissions–especially not at highly selective institutions.</p>