Admission / Jean Hanff Korelitz

A patron recommended this title to me the other day in the library and I thought it sounded really interesting. After having gone through the agony and the ecstasy of the college admissions process last year with our one and only child, I am still tuned in to the admissions cycle and have even been lurking in online college admissions forums to shadow students who are agonizing over their choices for college and university, and ultimately the choices that the college and universities make when considering their apps. It was just such a monumental process that it’s hard to turn it off. Maybe this book will serve as part of my therapy.

I also saw the movie based on Admission starring Tina Fey, and while it was billed as a comedy (which the book most certainly is not), it was only mildly entertaining. The book, as frequently is the case, is not like the movie. The author provides wonderful insight into the highly competitive admissions process and gives it a human face in the character of Portia Nathan, an admissions officer who takes great pride in her role as gatekeeper to Princeton, until there is a seismic shift in her personal life and things take a calamitous turn.

I loved the student application essay excerpts that started each chapter, and the wonderful discussions about fairness and tradition in selecting an incoming class for an ivy league school. I thought the characters were wonderful and the book reminded me a bit of The Marriage Plot in terms of its characters and setting. Sure, the narrative had more than a few unlikely happenstance connections, but I really enjoyed it and will miss “visiting” with Portia and John and all the other characters I’ve come to know these past few days.

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