★★★★★ 5
great resource for high school parents
Format: Paperback
A terrific book -- on many levels. It is, first, a series of excellent suspense stories, with vivid characterizations of the students seeking admission to Wesleyan. The author found some fascinating students to follow, with the result that the reader really cares what happens to them. Even more important -- especially to someone about to embark on the college hunt -- he provides an invaluable insight into how the admissions process works. The admissions game, I now realize thanks to this splendid tale, is a crazy-quilt mixture: at Wesleyan, at least, the process focuses on the individual, quirks and all, far more than I imagined. At the same time, the process comes off as frighteningly random -- with so much depending on which admissions officer reads the application, and what that person focuses on in the few minutes available. The book is also a vivid reminder that admissions officers are people, too -- people of infinite variety.
So it was a pleasure to read -- and it will also prove immensely useful to parents. One common theme kept repeating: take the hard courses, even if it means lower grades. Another: having a passion is a real plus, but the rest of the record can't be a disaster. But those are just the beginning.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2003
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