The Gatekeepers
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A riveting, behind-the-scenes look at how a top college picks the best of the lotIn the fall of 1999, New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg was given an unprecedented opportunity to observe the admissions process at prestigious Wesleyan University. Over the course of nearly a year, Steinberg accompanied admissions officer Ralph Figueroa on a tour to assess and recruit the most promising students in the country. The Gatekeepers follows a diverse group of prospective students as they compete for places in the nation's most elite colleges. The first book to reveal the college admission process in such behind-the-scenes detail, The Gatekeepers will be required reading for every parent of a high school-age child and for every student facing the arduous and anxious task of applying to college.
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This is probably one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Although Steinberg seems to have no particular mission for this work, it is truly an expose in the arbitrary decisions that are made by college admissions committees.
Perhaps the saddest part is the coda, wherein two students who were accepted despite mediocre grades and SAT scores were unable to handle the academic work and had to take time off from college, whereas two students who were rejected despite great SAT scores soared at their back up schools. It really highlights how unfair the process has been to both sets of students.
I'll admit that I was emotionally invested from the beginning. Like Jordan in the book, I had dream grades, SAT scores, AP classes & the works. Like Jordan, everyone assured me that I would get into Brown...and I didn't. So, like Jordan, I want to a mid-tier liberal arts college that was anxious to snap up the Ivy League's remnants (although unlike Jordan, I was savvy enough to choose one that gave me a substantial merit scholarship). Unlike Jordan, I never got over Brown, and deeply resent the four years I spent with coursework that failed to challenge me, and classmates who were not my intellectual equals. (For others in the same boat, take heart: despite going to a mid-rung college, I managed to get into a top-tier medical school, and thereafter a top-tier residency. Work hard and make the best of it; the rest of the world is not as fickle as undergrad admissions.)
