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Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites
In real life, Mitchell Stevens is a professor in bustling New York. But for a year and a half, he worked in the admissions office of a bucolic New England college that is known for its high academic standards, beautiful campus, and social conscience. Ambitious high schoolers and savvy guidance counselors know that admission here is highly competitive. But creating classes, Stevens finds, is a lot more complicated than most people imagine.Admissions officers love students but they work for the good of the school. They must bring each class in "on budget," burnish the statistics so crucial to institutional prestige, and take care of their colleagues in the athletic department and the development office. Stevens shows that the job cannot be done without "systematic preferencing," and racial affirmative action is the least of it. Kids have an edge if their parents can pay full tuition, if they attend high schools with exotic zip codes, if they are athletes--especially football players--and even if they are popular.With novelistic flair, sensitivity to history, and a keen eye for telling detail, Stevens explains how elite colleges and universities have assumed their central role in the production of the nation's most privileged classes. Creating a Class makes clear that, for better or worse, these schools now define the standards of youthful accomplishment in American culture more generally.
319 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2007
20 people are currently reading
528 people want to read
About the author
Mitchell L. Stevens
6 books2 followersA sociologist who studies higher education, and the inaugural Director of the project Futures of Learning, Occupations, and Work (FLOW). An associate professor at Stanford.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
November 17, 2015
This was really very interesting – much more interesting than I thought it was going to be. It is about a sociologist spending 18 months, I think, doing research in a Liberal Arts College admissions office in the US. Now, I didn’t know what a liberal arts college was prior to reading this – turns out it is a private university where rich people send their kids so that they get a rounded education. Seeing how these organisations go about selecting students to attend – and how they encourage students to attend - was all very interesting. What I found particularly so was that they say they are after a broad diversity of students, well, within fairly strict confines obviously enough, but this book makes it clear that within those confines the admissions officers are seeking to make these places as diverse as they can. These colleges are the intersecting lines of so many of our current myths and prejudices – and they respond to what I guess needs to be called ‘market forces’. They have undergone significant changes and are constantly looking for ways to better meet the needs (perceived or otherwise) of potential students.
We need to believe that our societies are based on merit, but, as is repeatedly made clear here, just because everyone, in theory, can send in an application to one of these schools, certain students are still much more likely to attend them than others are. And not merely for all of the usual reasons – you know, if your parents have buckets of money, if you have gone to a ‘good’ school, then you are also likely to have had additional help if and when you needed it, you are likely to have had lots of books around you as you grew up, gone overseas, and perhaps learned something of a language too, had family friends with interesting and varied occupations, had piano lessons, played various sports, had parents that knew what to expect at the various stages of education, who to talk to if things go pear-shaped and who are therefore able to help along the way if and when they saw it was necessary. In short, you have had what Lareau calls ‘concerted cultivation’. And these institutions don’t only accept people on the basis of their scores (SAT and so on) but also on all of these accomplishments – accomplishments that require cultivation over years.
But Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ play their part too in keeping certain kids out. These schools have histories and those histories haven’t always been nearly as ‘inclusive’ as the admissions officers tell you the colleges are today. If you are black or Latino or not terribly well off, then the students in these colleges might make you feel about as welcome as a ham sandwich at a bar mitzvah – as a saying goes. And even if you are welcomed with open arms, that is not to say that your parents might prefer you not to come home as one of the sorts of person these colleges spit out.
It was made clear that many of the students who attend these colleges are the ones that are pushing for more diversity – although, how much they engage such diversity is quite another question entirely, you know, I may never go to the beach, but it is nice to know it is there.
The colleges are particularly keen to encourage what is called ‘multicultural students’ (something I find amusing, as this could hardly be a clearly way of showing unconscious white privilege – everyone else has cultures - multiple times over – all except us). The lengths they went to in getting this diversity against the odds in a market with an ever decreasing ‘middle class’ were illuminating.
Sports scholarships where also fascinating things. These colleges invariably have football teams and in the US football is a game played with helmets. Now, I’d often heard that football teams in universities in the US are made up of basically dumb people that couldn’t have gotten into the university any other way – but part of me thought this might just be snobbishness. The author says that it is well known that ‘helmet’ sports (football and hockey) people aren’t terribly smart – I know next to nothing about either sport, but take his word for it. Which then leads to problems as colleges are judged both by the quality of their football teams and by their academic performance. And these teams require quite a few players – many more than I expected. So, there are constant struggles between different parts of the university with one side worried about academic reputation and the other about ‘winning the pendant’ or whatever you win for being particularly good at running about with a ball, and neither side having overall power to ever finally win one way or the other.
The author also said that because virtually every kid in the school had been brought up playing sports or gymnastics they were almost invariably beautiful. And not just beautiful in the sense of being young, or in being able to buy the best of clothes and so on – but quite literally physically perfected human-beings in almost every sense.
The best bits of this are where admissions officers are just chatting about different students, what they have achieved and so on, and whether to let them in or not – particularly the ones who are on the borderline. The things that get you over the line are, of course, related to your social and cultural capital – you know, when academic capital fails… Except that the university needs to also sustain the myth of meritocracy – as the author calls it in the last chapter, ‘the aristocracy of merit’. It is just that any system needs some sort of leeway to navigate around the rocks associated with ‘grey areas’ – and that leeway is where ‘knowing the rules of the game’ provides advantages well beyond those available to ‘outsiders’. This is even complained about by some of the admissions officers – those that have been pressured by a private high school’s career’s counsellor, for example, into letting a kid ‘just outside the admission standard’ in on the basis of quid pro quo – something a child from a school lower down the pecking order simply wouldn’t have the wherewithal to do. And thus what we otherwise take to be tiny advantages pile one upon one another.
Like I said, I liked this, not least because I love the idea of going along to somewhere like this and watching what people do in these circumstances, and given that these situations are ‘consequential’ in the lives of these young people, being the person that has to tell so many of them ‘I’m terribly sorry but…’ is something I’m much happier to learn about than to ever do. As they say at one point, about 40% of the people who submit an application to these colleges are qualified to attend – but the college can only take about 10% - how you go about selecting in these circumstances says fascinating things about how our society judge others as worthy.
We need to believe that our societies are based on merit, but, as is repeatedly made clear here, just because everyone, in theory, can send in an application to one of these schools, certain students are still much more likely to attend them than others are. And not merely for all of the usual reasons – you know, if your parents have buckets of money, if you have gone to a ‘good’ school, then you are also likely to have had additional help if and when you needed it, you are likely to have had lots of books around you as you grew up, gone overseas, and perhaps learned something of a language too, had family friends with interesting and varied occupations, had piano lessons, played various sports, had parents that knew what to expect at the various stages of education, who to talk to if things go pear-shaped and who are therefore able to help along the way if and when they saw it was necessary. In short, you have had what Lareau calls ‘concerted cultivation’. And these institutions don’t only accept people on the basis of their scores (SAT and so on) but also on all of these accomplishments – accomplishments that require cultivation over years.
But Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ play their part too in keeping certain kids out. These schools have histories and those histories haven’t always been nearly as ‘inclusive’ as the admissions officers tell you the colleges are today. If you are black or Latino or not terribly well off, then the students in these colleges might make you feel about as welcome as a ham sandwich at a bar mitzvah – as a saying goes. And even if you are welcomed with open arms, that is not to say that your parents might prefer you not to come home as one of the sorts of person these colleges spit out.
It was made clear that many of the students who attend these colleges are the ones that are pushing for more diversity – although, how much they engage such diversity is quite another question entirely, you know, I may never go to the beach, but it is nice to know it is there.
The colleges are particularly keen to encourage what is called ‘multicultural students’ (something I find amusing, as this could hardly be a clearly way of showing unconscious white privilege – everyone else has cultures - multiple times over – all except us). The lengths they went to in getting this diversity against the odds in a market with an ever decreasing ‘middle class’ were illuminating.
Sports scholarships where also fascinating things. These colleges invariably have football teams and in the US football is a game played with helmets. Now, I’d often heard that football teams in universities in the US are made up of basically dumb people that couldn’t have gotten into the university any other way – but part of me thought this might just be snobbishness. The author says that it is well known that ‘helmet’ sports (football and hockey) people aren’t terribly smart – I know next to nothing about either sport, but take his word for it. Which then leads to problems as colleges are judged both by the quality of their football teams and by their academic performance. And these teams require quite a few players – many more than I expected. So, there are constant struggles between different parts of the university with one side worried about academic reputation and the other about ‘winning the pendant’ or whatever you win for being particularly good at running about with a ball, and neither side having overall power to ever finally win one way or the other.
The author also said that because virtually every kid in the school had been brought up playing sports or gymnastics they were almost invariably beautiful. And not just beautiful in the sense of being young, or in being able to buy the best of clothes and so on – but quite literally physically perfected human-beings in almost every sense.
The best bits of this are where admissions officers are just chatting about different students, what they have achieved and so on, and whether to let them in or not – particularly the ones who are on the borderline. The things that get you over the line are, of course, related to your social and cultural capital – you know, when academic capital fails… Except that the university needs to also sustain the myth of meritocracy – as the author calls it in the last chapter, ‘the aristocracy of merit’. It is just that any system needs some sort of leeway to navigate around the rocks associated with ‘grey areas’ – and that leeway is where ‘knowing the rules of the game’ provides advantages well beyond those available to ‘outsiders’. This is even complained about by some of the admissions officers – those that have been pressured by a private high school’s career’s counsellor, for example, into letting a kid ‘just outside the admission standard’ in on the basis of quid pro quo – something a child from a school lower down the pecking order simply wouldn’t have the wherewithal to do. And thus what we otherwise take to be tiny advantages pile one upon one another.
Like I said, I liked this, not least because I love the idea of going along to somewhere like this and watching what people do in these circumstances, and given that these situations are ‘consequential’ in the lives of these young people, being the person that has to tell so many of them ‘I’m terribly sorry but…’ is something I’m much happier to learn about than to ever do. As they say at one point, about 40% of the people who submit an application to these colleges are qualified to attend – but the college can only take about 10% - how you go about selecting in these circumstances says fascinating things about how our society judge others as worthy.
February 21, 2014
Interesting read! A sociology professor worked in the admissions office at a northeastern liberal arts college. This book shed light on the importance of the relationships that admissions staff have with high school guidance staff as well as relationships across campus (athletics, development, etc). It highlighted the many small things that add up to acceptance at a selective institution. Great metaphor of privileged students in the HOV lane in a luxury SUV on the highway to success. While other students might be on the road, too, their car might be breaking down & subject to rough conditions.
April 13, 2020
I thought it was super interesting. I could never work in admissions
February 26, 2020
My favorite chapter was Chapter 6!
Read
October 6, 2024i refuse to rate this bc i had to read the entire thing in like 5 days but we survived
January 16, 2013
I think this is supposed to be a popular press book but I think it deserves a place in a good Soc of Ed class. Do Soc of Ed classes even pay much attention to higher education stratification? I'm not sure. I do a lot of guest lecturing that suggests not. But I diverge. This is a good, solid, readable book about how inequalities in K-12 get "ratcheted" up to higher education through organizational processes and cultural transmission. The trick is, how you gonna outlaw culture and organizations? You can't. And that's why we see the transmission of privilege from one generation to the next. Elite colleges are a key mechanism for the transmission of that privilege. The history in this book influenced my own doctoral research so thanks for that Mitchell. The history of sports in gaining legitimacy for elite colleges was also influential. Thanks for leaving the gender component on the table. I ran with that. Finally, I saw you at ASA once Mitchell. Tried to tell you that I assign this book and got so much from it. But, alas, proximity is not necessarily social distance. So, if you ever see this: thanks.
June 12, 2010
I enjoyed reading this book, partly because my youngest niece has gone through the admissions process this past academic year. Creating a Class reiterated what I already knew about the competitiveness of the admissions process, but it was interesting hearing it from an "outside insider." (The author is a professor who did a stint in Admissions.) I'd definitely recommend this book to people in academia, as well as parents interested in sending their children to a competitive school.
March 16, 2023
I had my doubts coming in to the book as it was written about a time more than 20 years ago, but it was dead-on accurate for the modern day, and impressively perspicacious and well-written. A curious expose on the backbone of our screwed up little modern class system and us little gnomes who carry it out.
June 6, 2017
Insights of how admission decisions are made in an elite college, which represent the top tier of the higher-ed machine.
You see officers who work hard to attend to details of applicants' cases, going out of their ways to maintain good relationships with high school counselors, or do carefully orchestrated impression management for the college before perspective students and their parents. All of this for the purpose of presenting the college in a favorable light and recruit top students.
There are many savoring worthy, complex decision process behind applications. The college is admitting individual young man and woman, and therefore hope to obtain as much information about them through the application materials, contacts, research as possible. Here, applicants who goes to a posh, elite school with a counselor who knows the admission officers on a personal basis and can bargain with the college with qui pro quo deal trading clearly has an advantage. This extra personal touch is where kids from average background but all other things being equal fall short - Stevens summarizes the latter group as "rural Massachusetts public high school valedictorian".
The fact that getting into college is a race that starts much earlier - even before the kids entered elementary school - and no parents will spare efforts in securing a good future life for their children, and that colleges have since early 20th century taken on the role of conferring power and status to the rich and powerful, a probe into how colleges admit its students is a very telling account for how the bigger social mechanism works in the U.S.
The conclusion is that yes the many power rules that runs our society runs college admission as well. Sometimes, the other person simply knows an extra person, gets that extra personal face time than you. However, at least in the College in the book, there are safeguards for the underprivileged too - the Black elderly man who everyone respects and made sure that the college admitted at least one black male students by almost threatening the president one year, and the one case which officers have the final say if they decided to advocate for a kid from modest background.
Other insights simply informs us why colleges are the way they are now - for example, athletics make sure that college not just produce dorks but well-rounded graduates who are physically beautiful in addition to their education and "middle class" upbringing. And also because masculinity is worshiped in America, a society despite of its development and leading role in many ways is in some of its values very kin to our animalistic instincts - now that is not a matter of better of worse, it is just other society value the animalistic, rough sides less but look up more to intellect for example.
Now, how is knowing all this Book helpful? It helps if you want to know how admission decisions are made, or if all other things being equal, what is that mysterious ingredient that makes admission processes so opaque - yes, who you know does matter a lot and any other ways that allows you to leave a personal impression. The book also raises important questions about what kind of fairness or value system our society should endorse. Are we really giving young people and families with less means and from lower backgrounds a chance to move up? What could we do better?
You see officers who work hard to attend to details of applicants' cases, going out of their ways to maintain good relationships with high school counselors, or do carefully orchestrated impression management for the college before perspective students and their parents. All of this for the purpose of presenting the college in a favorable light and recruit top students.
There are many savoring worthy, complex decision process behind applications. The college is admitting individual young man and woman, and therefore hope to obtain as much information about them through the application materials, contacts, research as possible. Here, applicants who goes to a posh, elite school with a counselor who knows the admission officers on a personal basis and can bargain with the college with qui pro quo deal trading clearly has an advantage. This extra personal touch is where kids from average background but all other things being equal fall short - Stevens summarizes the latter group as "rural Massachusetts public high school valedictorian".
The fact that getting into college is a race that starts much earlier - even before the kids entered elementary school - and no parents will spare efforts in securing a good future life for their children, and that colleges have since early 20th century taken on the role of conferring power and status to the rich and powerful, a probe into how colleges admit its students is a very telling account for how the bigger social mechanism works in the U.S.
The conclusion is that yes the many power rules that runs our society runs college admission as well. Sometimes, the other person simply knows an extra person, gets that extra personal face time than you. However, at least in the College in the book, there are safeguards for the underprivileged too - the Black elderly man who everyone respects and made sure that the college admitted at least one black male students by almost threatening the president one year, and the one case which officers have the final say if they decided to advocate for a kid from modest background.
Other insights simply informs us why colleges are the way they are now - for example, athletics make sure that college not just produce dorks but well-rounded graduates who are physically beautiful in addition to their education and "middle class" upbringing. And also because masculinity is worshiped in America, a society despite of its development and leading role in many ways is in some of its values very kin to our animalistic instincts - now that is not a matter of better of worse, it is just other society value the animalistic, rough sides less but look up more to intellect for example.
Now, how is knowing all this Book helpful? It helps if you want to know how admission decisions are made, or if all other things being equal, what is that mysterious ingredient that makes admission processes so opaque - yes, who you know does matter a lot and any other ways that allows you to leave a personal impression. The book also raises important questions about what kind of fairness or value system our society should endorse. Are we really giving young people and families with less means and from lower backgrounds a chance to move up? What could we do better?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 6, 2024
I am a sucker for this genre: An outsider spends an extended period in the admissions office for an elite university and then tells all about how it really works. I've already enjoyed The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier CollegeThe Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions, and How an Ivy League College Decides on Admissions. I can just read this exact kind of book over and over.
This particular volume really does it all. While the author is rooted in his embedded experience, he is not bound to merely reporting what he observes. Stevens does a great job of rooting his observations in disciplinary literature and also extending his observations to propose models for how the parties involved in admissions interact.
To oversimplify the author's approach, he is seeking complexity of influence. From the outside, offices of admission can appear to be cloistered tyrants. They sit in their office for months at a time and decide who gets in and who is left out. Stevens demonstrates how this perception does not match the lived experience of admissions officers. Instead, they feel themselves to be subject to pressures, politics, and obligations on every side. Their zone of control is much more limited than it might appear.
Each chapter focuses on a different area of obligation for admissions and a different point in the annual process. This combination of observation, background, and theory in each chapter makes for a readable and propulsive text, doing a service to popular academic writing. The book is 20 years old, but most of it holds up incredibly well. Some of the technology has changed, but most of the trends he explores are as present today as they were in 2004. This is interesting both as a snapshot and as a projection of what was yet to come.
This is a great introduction to contemporary issues in the admissions landscape and access to higher education at large.
This particular volume really does it all. While the author is rooted in his embedded experience, he is not bound to merely reporting what he observes. Stevens does a great job of rooting his observations in disciplinary literature and also extending his observations to propose models for how the parties involved in admissions interact.
To oversimplify the author's approach, he is seeking complexity of influence. From the outside, offices of admission can appear to be cloistered tyrants. They sit in their office for months at a time and decide who gets in and who is left out. Stevens demonstrates how this perception does not match the lived experience of admissions officers. Instead, they feel themselves to be subject to pressures, politics, and obligations on every side. Their zone of control is much more limited than it might appear.
Each chapter focuses on a different area of obligation for admissions and a different point in the annual process. This combination of observation, background, and theory in each chapter makes for a readable and propulsive text, doing a service to popular academic writing. The book is 20 years old, but most of it holds up incredibly well. Some of the technology has changed, but most of the trends he explores are as present today as they were in 2004. This is interesting both as a snapshot and as a projection of what was yet to come.
This is a great introduction to contemporary issues in the admissions landscape and access to higher education at large.
December 23, 2018
A truly fascinating deep dive into the admissions at elite institutions. I learned a lot, which was largely a product of Stevens' close focus on his own year of ethnographic observations and participation at a single liberal arts college. As he points out, much of what he observes must be generalizeable. Still, I find myself wondering how this plays out at all elite institutions. The other thing that I was surprised to not find in his conversation was any discussion of choosing not to admit someone because officers presumed s/he would go elsewhere (somewhere even more elite). I would have presumed this was a bigger part of the game than was reflected here.
March 21, 2019
Underwhelmed by this erudite explanation of how college admissions are handled at a small, elite, NY liberal Arts college. Always expressed but never directly pointed out as a deciding factor: How much cash can this family bring to the school.
Written by someone from Stanford who worked at this college (Hamilton College in Clinton, NY) for 18 months, this book had an elitist patina glowing about it just out of the gate. It was like I was reading a monograph about a kidnapper by his victim suffering from Stockholm Syndrome
Written by someone from Stanford who worked at this college (Hamilton College in Clinton, NY) for 18 months, this book had an elitist patina glowing about it just out of the gate. It was like I was reading a monograph about a kidnapper by his victim suffering from Stockholm Syndrome
August 12, 2022
Although this book was written about 20 years ago, the patterns it outlines in higher ed admissions and discussions about trends in higher ed are still present, if not more amplified. I read this book because I plan to assign it for a course on the soc of higher ed I am teaching in fall 2022. I like it for that section as well because the introduction concisely outlines the core theoretical frames in the sociology of higher ed, which is a nice reference for a lower-mid-level undergraduate course.
May 19, 2019
Wish I'd read this before going to college, would've made the whole application process a little less painful. A pretty interesting sociology study that I had to read for class, but nothing that profound. Also kind of outdated.
November 27, 2021
A really interesting look at admissions (read for grad school)
February 15, 2023
Read it for my Intro to Sociology class. Had some really interesting points that made you stop and think.
December 16, 2020
A little outdated with assertions which will not be surprising for those of us consuming information about selective admissions regularly. I wish there was more of a focus on policy.
February 19, 2017
Loved this book, maybe the best I've read on highly selective admissions. I have read a lot on the subject and was suprised by how much I learned from reading this. I really enjoyed how it placed college admissions in the context of the development of the American upper middle class and the role of elite education in passing on privilege to the next generation. Most books about college admissions seem to be written by journalists - including the very similar The Gatekeepers : Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College" - and I think this benefits in being written by a sociologist.
I should also note that while the author obscures the identity of the college he studies, it is actually Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. I matriculated there six years after Stevens conducted his research and one year before this book was published.
I should also note that while the author obscures the identity of the college he studies, it is actually Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. I matriculated there six years after Stevens conducted his research and one year before this book was published.
May 2, 2008
A friend of mine, a grad student at NYU, saw Mitchell Stevens speak and recommended Creating a Class to me. Stevens, an NYU professor, took a year away from teaching to do in-field research on higher ed admissions by working in the admissions office of an East Coast liberal arts college.
I went to a college which resembles the one Stephens worked at, and I volunteered in the admissions office for many years. I also worked two summers at the admissions office of a community college. Plus, I've applied to lots of institutions of higher learning! Very interesting to get an insider's perspective.
While I definitely picked up this book for the look behind the scenes it provided, what is sticking with me are Stevens' discussions of how, even with affirmative action and diversity statements, admission to elite institutions of higher ed is still available to a quite small, and quite homogeneous, segment of the population.
I went to a college which resembles the one Stephens worked at, and I volunteered in the admissions office for many years. I also worked two summers at the admissions office of a community college. Plus, I've applied to lots of institutions of higher learning! Very interesting to get an insider's perspective.
While I definitely picked up this book for the look behind the scenes it provided, what is sticking with me are Stevens' discussions of how, even with affirmative action and diversity statements, admission to elite institutions of higher ed is still available to a quite small, and quite homogeneous, segment of the population.
November 21, 2009
It would be hard for me to say enough good things about this book -- Stevens does a masterful job marshaling participant observation data that in less skillful hands might fall flat. His findings not only offers insights about the role of academics, race, and athletics in elite college admissions; Stevens also creates a powerful argument (and genuine innovation in the sociology of education) connecting the rise of higher education in the United States, the transition from a Fordist to a post-Fordist economy, and the emergence of what Annette Lareau terms "concerted cultivation" as the primary method of middle-class child rearing. The concluding chapter contains so much thoughtful analysis and raises so many questions that I can only hope it will somehow be a springboard for his next project.
February 2, 2016
A good look, from a scholarly participant-observer, of how the college admissions process works at a prestigious liberal arts college, from the college's perspective. I appreciated that the book looked not just at the admissions office, but how it interacts with the athletics, development, and diversity departments/offices of the college, and also how the college markets itself to students. It made me look at all the parenting and education work that middle- and upper-class families and the schools they attend do to prepare their children for admission to such colleges. It helped answer questions I had about the admissions process at my alma matter, a small, less prestigious liberal arts college.
January 26, 2010
An eye opening book for high school students and parents. A candid look into the inner workings of an admissions department at a Northeast highly selective liberal arts college from a professor's perspective (rather than the journalist's perspective in The Gatekeepers). The author spent 18 months working in the Admissions Department for this anonymous college. I learned that even the best of intentions get waylaid by everyday issues of workload and the basic principles of economics.
December 17, 2010
Interesting look at admissions in one competitive northeastern college. Very engaging writing for what could be a dry topic. Lots of interesting insights about how education reinforces existing class boundaries (for example, only people with money can afford the kind of experiences for their children that look good during competitive admissions). Also interesting insights on the role of sports in colleges, particularly the way that the sports divisions signal the status of the school.
December 6, 2020
This book was one of the few books assigned for a college course that I genuinely enjoyed and took my time to read. I think anyone applying for colleges or doing anything regarding colleges should read this book. It provides an insider view to the college admissions process and forces you to think critically.
November 20, 2007
the insider scoop on what goes on in the backrooms of the admissions offices of elite private colleges
March 10, 2009
Academic in nature but easy enough to relate to. An eye opening look at the admissions game.
June 22, 2010
Elite college admissions are VERY similar to TFA admissions! Interesting book, not sure I buy the thesis.
August 27, 2011
Very interesting and informative about elite schools.
March 26, 2012
Informative but could have been more tightly edited.
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