Sandra bought this book with the intention of reading it, but one day I read a few pages and became interested. I ended up reading the whole thing and telling her the parts of it that I found most interesting. And this is a VERY interesting book – a New York Times reporter tells the true story of the admissions process at the private liberal arts college Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut), as well as the story of six high school students from around the country as they apply to many colleges and wait anxiously to hear which, if any, will accept them.

With Christina just starting out on this long road, I learned many things

that might prove valuable to our family. Jacques Steinberg, the author, follows a Wesleyan admissions officer, Ralph Figueroa, as he and his colleagues travel around the country to entice high school students to apply to their institution. In particular, they are looking for high school students with a blend of grades, test scores, extra-curricular interests, and personal character, in the attempt to build the best possible future class of students. Competition with other colleges and universities is intense, and each does their best to convince the students that their institution is the one that will provide them with the best education, and thus, the best opportunities in life.

I particularly found the stories of the six high school students to be fascinating, as they were of quite different backgrounds. I was surprised to discover that colleges note if applicants have parents that did not go to college – they are given the benefit of the doubt if they have lower scores! Colleges apparently expect children of college graduates to have high grades and test scores, and this can result in colleges admitting students with lower scores, but that have struggled and done well, not just in school, but in their personal lives and in their activities. Students of different racial backgrounds are among those profiled here, and the topic of diversity is often covered in the book.

I really liked this book, the author did a great job of letting us feel the struggle on both sides, and the suspense built as we wait to hear who will be accepted where, and where the students will decide to attend college. An epilogue tells us what happened to the six students in the years after they were accepted to colleges like Yale, Cornell, Muehlenberg College, and yes, Wesleyan. What surprised me the most was how many of these students ended up dropping out, taking time off, or transferring to a different university. As he says in the book, each student’s path in life is different.

A new afterword, written 10 years later (in 2012), tells us what happened to the six students this much later in their lives. I was surprised to read that some of them went back to law school and became lawyers. It also tells us how the admissions process has changed in the years since the book, particularly regarding the use of the Common Application and the boom in the number of applicants applying to each college. In addition, the continuing personal story of Ralph Figueroa, his colleagues, and the admissions office at Wesleyan University is told.

I’m hoping I can get Christina to read this book, I think she would learn a lot from it. That said, I just looked The Gatekeepers up in Wikipedia and found that it wasn’t very well-received and that the Harvard Education Review felt that it would “offer little help to parents trying to get their children into colleges”. Hmm … from my point of view, I’d say that I learned a lot of things I didn’t know and that this WILL be valuable to us, if only just as a starting point.