7 October 2002 THE GATE-KEEPERS: INSIDE THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS OF A PREMIER COLLEGE by Jacques Steinberg, Viking, September 2002

Mom told me that I should apply to Harvard. She was hoping I'd attend a prestigious institution like Tony, the oldest cousin on my Sicilian side, who'd graduated from Notre Dame and gone to work for IBM. Mom also told me to study Real Estate and get a business degree so that I could then come back home and continue to work with Dad. I'd grown up on the jobs with him: first when he just had the plumbing business, and later when it evolved into a booming residential construction company. And, while I'd seen Love Story, and thus knew what Harvard was all about, it didn't seem to me worth all that money for an undergraduate education when I didn't know yet what it was that I really wanted to do. My parents? Not having any experience, they knew less about colleges and picking one than I did. I ended up attending UConn.

Nowadays, I sometimes consider how I might have instead applied to Berkley, where the radical heroes of my adolescence had taken their stances. But the reality is, UConn really was a pretty good fit. I was able to easily succeed; graduating in three years allowed me to more quickly begin my first career as Environmental Activist. Logistically, I was just the perfect distance from home that I could occasionally hitch hike down there but never had to fear that my parents might show up for a surprise visit. And, thanks to good fortune/dumb luck, I got to take those two intimate-sized, life-altering semesters of Freshman Composition with Ann Beattie.

It's exactly thirty years since I applied to UConn--chosen essentially (and haphazardly) because it happened to offer a major in Real Estate--and Shari and I have been occasionally discussing taking our daughter Katie, the diligent eighth-grade student and writer, on a scenic trip to check out the elite, name-brand universities of New England. But other than my continued assumptions that high SAT scores, some extracurricular activities, and the right high school classes could strengthen the possibilities of acceptance at those schools, I have really known little about the process by which they choose who passes through those hallowed gates (ivy-covered or otherwise).

THE GATE-KEEPERS is an illuminating and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the admissions process at Wesleyan, one of the better-known American universities and a member of that elite group of institutions where they annually turn away the large majority of those who apply for admission. The author, who is the national education correspondent for the New York Times, shadows admissions officer Ralph Figueroa, as he travels out to high schools and prep schools around the country, holds introductory sessions for SRO crowds on campus, meets with his coworkers, and spends endless hours studying his share of the year's seven-thousand applications, each of which needs to be read by at least two admissions officers. The author, who had the full cooperation of Wesleyan, as well as that of a selection of students who we watch going through the process (real names, backgrounds, and essay excerpts included) weaves a fascinating tale of how human judgment calls--often based on the lives of the admissions people themselves--and those mountains of numbers and checked boxes meld into the thousands of decisions on who gets what they want and who doesn't.

By following Ralph through the book, middle and high school students will get a good sense of what they want to be doing, years in advance, if they want to really keep their college options as open as possible. The students' stories will both inspire and send warning signals. The book will also make teens aware of what are many of those elite schools.

But THE GATE-KEEPERS is also the story of Ralph Figueroa, the son of immigrants, whose background and upbringing has led him to forego the lucrative opportunities offered by the law degree he'd earned to instead take his hectic, modestly paying position at Wesleyan where he helps play God to the diverse thousands of young adults whose lives will undoubtedly be different based on what he thinks about their application.

THE GATE-KEEPERS will also make a great complementary bookend for students to the recently released CATALYST by Laurie Halse Anderson. (CATALYST might have been a much different story if Kate Malone had gotten to read THE GATE-KEEPERS before applying.)

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com