Contact Pam for Private College Consulting
What's Your Hook?
Every high school student actually has a College Hook – that one special interest that will cause admissions officials to salivate over an application and will significantly increase the odds of getting into a favorite college.
Sometimes students have an obvious Hook, such as the highly ranked pole-vaulter from Florida or the budding cholesterol researcher from Georgia. One student transformed herself into a “foreign correspondent,” and still another became involved in a heart-rending search for a Chinese birth mother.
“But absolutely nothing about me sticks out!” many of my students protest in initial interviews. “I’m involved in lots of activities, but nothing about me is special.”
If that’s your attitude, you’re wrong. Somewhere, deep in your background, experience, or interests, lies a talent or passion that you can mine, massage, and market to increase dramatically your chances for admission to the college of your dreams.
What's Your Hook?
Every high school student actually has a College Hook – that one special interest that will cause admissions officials to salivate over an application and will significantly increase the odds of getting into a favorite college.
Sometimes students have an obvious Hook, such as the highly ranked pole-vaulter from Florida or the budding cholesterol researcher from Georgia. One student transformed herself into a “foreign correspondent,” and still another became involved in a heart-rending search for a Chinese birth mother.
“But absolutely nothing about me sticks out!” many of my students protest in initial interviews. “I’m involved in lots of activities, but nothing about me is special.”
If that’s your attitude, you’re wrong. Somewhere, deep in your background, experience, or interests, lies a talent or passion that you can mine, massage, and market to increase dramatically your chances for admission to the college of your dreams.
The College Hook
Packaging Yourself to Win the College Admissions Game
My book, The College Hook: Packaging Yourself to Win the College Admissions Game, is designed to help you find and use the special Hook that will cause your true, dynamic identity to shine through your applications and into the hearts of admissions committees.
Drawing on real-life anecdotes and examples from my students’ successful applications, The College Hook offers inside tips on how to:
• Create a résumé themed to your hook
• Bolster your hook with outside activities
• Write winning essays
• Present your honors and activities for maximum impact
• Ace an interview
The China Connection
A chance meeting with a Chinese counselor at a national counselors’ convention in Austin, Texas, led to the publication of The College Hook in Mandarin in 2011. Published by the prestigious East China Normal University Press, the Chinese edition of The College Hook was a hit in Shanghai.
My husband, Bill, and I were invited to speak there to Chinese students and parents at a book launch. I shared the secrets of finding a hook, and Bill gave inside tips on SAT prep.
Testimonials
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