<p>How important are hooks in the college application essay?</p>
<p>So far, most of the hooks I’ve seen are sensationalistic and redundant. Often, it feels as if the only point of a hook is to convince the reader to finish the essay, but adcoms have to finish reading the essay whether or not it contains a hook. Additionally, after reading such a vast number of college essays, I would suspect that the reader might be desensitized to meaningless hooks. What do you think?</p>
<p>Good opening sentences aren’t any more overrated than other parts of a good essay, but for some reason a lot of people think it’s good to have an annoying/misleading opening sentence (or a dictionary definition, or a misattributed quote from the Internet). No one reading application essays is going to become desensitized to actual good writing. </p>
<p>An admissions “hook” is attribute that fills an institutional want or need: </p>
<ul>
<li>URM </li>
<li>recruited athlete</li>
<li>development case (i.e. 8-figure donor)</li>
</ul>
<p>“Hook” in an essay and an actual “hook” are different. The latter refers to someone that really boosts chance of admission. This can mean underrepresented minority, first gen student, legacy… </p>
<p>@GMTplus7: In this case, I was referring to narrative hooks.</p>