<p>Examples please!</p>
<p>If you have one, you would know about it.</p>
<p>Of course. I was just curious…</p>
<p>The only hooks you have control over is being good enough at a sport to be recruited or developing an extretreme talent (famous actor, rock star). After that you were either born a URM or not, a legacy or not or a child of the rich and powerful or not.</p>
<p>I think being a President’s daughter tops most of the criteria -:)</p>
<p>At any college: Curing cancer, saving the world from nuclear war, President’s kid (although even that might not get you into HYPSM if you had like a 1.0 LOL), curing AIDS, winning the Nobel Prize, being offered a teaching position at the college you want to attend. </p>
<p>At that specific college: kid of the Chancellor/dean of admissions. Donate $100 million.</p>
<p>or win a medal at the Olympics or be the heroine of seven part movie franchise aka Harry Porter</p>
<p>“or be the heroine of seven part movie franchise aka Harry Porter”</p>
<p>let’s not be hating on Emma- she’s plenty smart to begin with :D</p>
<p>I would say an olympic gold medalist in swimming, running (sprints or long distance) or perhaps diving would be guaranteed into everywhere due to the extremely competitive nature of the fields. The grand winners of IMO, IChO, IPhO, APhO and IBO would probably be in a similar situation.</p>
<p>Male ballet dancer.</p>
<p>Black, Presidential, Legacy daughter?</p>
<p>Sasha & Malia beat us all</p>
<p>Aren’t the Seimens Awards pretty hookish? There are some awards and ECs that could definitely hook you. But a hook doesn’t mean you’ll definitely get in, even with great stats.</p>
<p>Athletes are obviously the best-hooked, but I always feel like people take musicians for granted as hooked applicants. If you’re a fantastic bassoon player, for example, you’re probably going to stand out in a pool from which there aren’t a whole lot of bassoon players. Obviously piano or violin or trumpet isn’t going to hook you, but something more obscure may, like Tuba or Oboe or Bassoon.</p>
<p>My son is American citizen doing his last two years of high school at an international school in Switzerland because the family relocated here. He is getting the opportunity to travel all around Europe and make friends with classmates from all around the world. Is that a hook? If so, how big of one? </p>
<p>If winning the Nobel Prize or curing cancer is a blue marlin hook and being a first generation is a small mouth bass hook, where does this fit in?</p>
<p>It’s not a hook.</p>
<p>Is that a hook? If so, how big of one?>></p>
<p>If it is, many military and state dept. kids would have the exact same hook.</p>
<p>People use the term hook very loosely on these boards, but the big three are recruited athlete, URM, and legacy. Being highly–ie nationally–competitive in academic competitions (forensics, the science and math ones with crazy acronyms, etc) is good as well, but not necessarily a hook unless you’re really tippy-top.</p>
<p>OP: My personal rule of thumb is: A hook is something that will get a student admitted who is unqualified by the school’s own standards. Under that definition, the most common hooks would be recruited athletes, URMs, A-list movie stars, Daddy-gave-10-million-bucks, stuff like that. By definition, they are rare, and schools want these students for other-than-academic reasons.</p>
<p>Your son has what I’ve heard called a “tip” – something that may (or may not) get him noticed among a large pool of qualified applicants. Schools are looking to building an interesting freshman class. Selective schools may have 5, 10, or 20 well-qualified applicants for every slot. That’s when they start looking at tips: students who have talents or skills that they’d like to see in the freshman class, or students who would add geographic diversity, or students like your son who’ve had interesting experiences. So his applications should definitely make note of his travels and what he’s learned abroad, perhaps in his essays. But a guaranteed ticket to a top college? Probably not.</p>
<p>Thanks, LasMa. That input is helpful and moreorless what I assumed. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Being Native American</p>
<p>Stephen Hawking vet’s all of his discoveries and hypotheses with me before he publishes. Is that a hook?</p>