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Polymers and rod-like colloids (PaRC) adopt a favorable orientation under sufficiently strong flows. However, how the flow kinematics affect the alignment of such nanostructures according to their extensibility remains unclear. By analyzing the shear- and extension-induced alignment of chemically and structurally different PaRC, we show that extensibility is a key determinant of the structural response to the imposed kinematics. We propose a unified description of the effectiveness of extensional flow, compared to shearing flow, at aligning PaRC of different extensibility.