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51 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"We're all about making citizens of the world.", April 18, 2009
"Admission" is a novel that examines the complex process of selecting incoming freshmen for Princeton University from a large pool of eager and often superbly qualified applicants. Jean Hanff Korelitz draws on her experience as an "outside reader" for Princeton to add verisimilitude to her story. She also spoke with deans of admissions and college counselors to gain a broad perspective on what has become, for many, a harrowing and competitive race to the finish line. The protagonist is thirty-eight year old Portia Nathan, who has been a reader in Princeton's Office of Admission for the past decade. She is passionate about her work, identifying with the "kids" whose orange application folders contain a mini-portrait of their backgrounds, accomplishments, and ambitions. It is part of her job to visit feeder schools and deliver a sales pitch to encourage high school juniors and seniors to consider Princeton. Sometimes she manages to recruit a gem during her travels, such as "the Inuit girl from Sitka, Alaska, who'd won Princeton's sole Rhodes scholarship last year."
Unfortunately, Portia is in a rut. She has been living with an English professor for sixteen years, and they have little of substance to say to one another these days. She has few friends and little contact with her sixty-eight year old mother, Susannah, a gregarious do-gooder who spends much of her time volunteering for a host of worthy causes. Unexpectedly, during her visit to the Quest School (whose mission is "to open doors, not close them") in rural New Hampshire, Portia meets a warm and compassionate teacher named John Halsey who remembers her from their days at Dartmouth, as well as Jeremiah Balakian, a seventeen-year-old autodidact who has terrible grades but is a zealous and voracious reader. These encounters will shake up Portia's life in ways that she could never have foreseen.
Korelitz is a fluid writer who provides a minutely detailed view of the whole admissions ordeal--especially what it costs parents and their children in angst, expense, and emotional upheaval. One clever and original touch is the inclusion of an excerpt from a typical college application essay before each chapter. Some of these are cloying, others smack of desperation, and a few are poignant and even profound. The essays convey more about admissions than the author's encyclopedic explanation of every aspect of this incredibly complicated rite of passage.
Although Portia is a likeable and engaging character with enough wit and charm to make us care about her, she cannot carry the book by herself. What eventually sinks "Admission," besides its excessive length, are its one-dimensional secondary characters and its regrettable descent into soap opera. The author expects us to buy two incredible coincidences that induce Portia to take a hard look at the bad decisions she has made. As Portia clumsily deals with the fallout from her mistakes, Korelitz wraps things up disappointingly with a trite and predictable conclusion. The title, "Admission," has a double meaning, referring not only to the college admission process, but also to the importance of admitting painful truths to oneself and our loved ones before it is too late to make things right. It is too bad that Korelitz relies on clichés and heavy-handed plot elements. These keep what could have been a sharp and timely work of contemporary fiction from realizing its full potential.
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28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating read, April 14, 2009
Portia Nathan is an admissions officer at Princeton University who is assigned to the Northeast. Her duties include traveling to schools in her area to give presentations on Princeton to high school seniors. On her visit to one school, she encounters a man who remembers her from their days at Dartmouth. She doesn't remember him, but she ends up sleeping with him that evening. Portia's not sure why she did this because she's content enough in her domestic life - she's been living with her longtime boyfriend, Mark, an English professor at Princeton.
As she and Mark are traveling to see Portia's mother for the holidays, Mark tells her that he can't go on and she discovers that he has been having an affair and his other girlfriend is pregnant. He returns to Princeton and Portia continues on to her mother's alone. Upon arrival, Portia finds that her mother has taken in a pregnant seventeen year old and intends to help her raise the baby. All of this news throws Portia into a deep depression that leaves her barely able to function. Things from her past come back to haunt her and she has to deal with a secret from long ago that she'd like to forget.
Because Portia is such an aloof character, I found Admission, by Jean Hanff Korelitz a little slow at the beginning, but once I got into it, I didn't want to put it down. I found the details of the admission process at Ivy League colleges fascinating and found myself thankful that I went to college before U. S. News & World Report started their college rankings. I found that Portia was much more complex than she seemed on the surface and I just had to know what her secret was. Portia's mother, Susannah, was a free-spirit and I enjoyed reading about her. Susannah's the type of woman I admire and love to talk to, but frankly, I'm glad my mother's not like her. Overall, I thought this character driven book was great.
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22 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
From S. Krishna's Books, April 8, 2009
As soon as I heard that Admission was about a Princeton admissions officer, I knew I wanted to read it. I love most books set on college campuses, not because I miss college, but because I romanticize the world of academia in my head. I feel like it's this place devoted to learning and knowledge, above the petty politics of the outside world. Of course, it's not actually like that, but I enjoy picturing it in my head!
Admission is an absolutely enthralling look inside the college admissions process. Written by a former part-time admissions officer from Princeton, Jean Hanff Korelitz knows her stuff. It's incredibly interesting to see what really goes on behind the scenes. When you are applying to college, there is such mystery behind whether you will get accepted or not. I really loved reading this book about the other side. It was nice to know that there is a human face and are human emotions behind this difficult but crucial process.
I also really liked hearing other people's arguments with Portia about the college admissions process, and her defense. I especially liked it when she went on her rants, about how whenever Princeton tried to do anything differently, it made someone angry. For example, when Princeton denies a legacy kid, the legacies get angry. But regular kids get angry when the legacy kids seem to have an easier time getting in. It's always a trade-off; I'm not sure I thought of it that way before.
I liked the character of Portia. It's clear that she was really invested in her job and took it seriously. She was passionate about her work, yet managed to be polite to those people that accosted her at dinner parties (I imagine that would be a huge downside to her job). She was an incredibly complicated character; it's obvious she had hurts and pains stretching back to college that she hadn't quite dealt with yet. The entire book hints around the mystery of what happened between her and her ex-boyfriend Tom. However, when the book finally got there, I wasn't really that interested. I was much more taken by the college admissions storyline than I was about Portia's past.
Admission is a fascinating read for anyone remotely interested in academia or in the college admissions process. I definitely recommend it!
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