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Admission [Hardcover]

Jean Hanff Korelitz (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Portia Nathan, the overly dedicated 38-year-old Princeton admissions officer, narrator of Korelitz's overthought fourth novel, finds purpose in her gatekeeper role. But her career and conscience are challenged after she visits a down-at-the-heels New England town on a scouting trip and meets Jeremiah, a talented but rough-around-the-edges 17-year-old who maybe doesn't measure up as Princeton material. The real rub is how making his acquaintance forces Portia to confront a painful secret from her past that ties into some domestic discord with her professor friend, David, and may lead her into a career-endangering fracas with the admissions board. The narrative is slow out of the gate, though it gets some pep once the Jeremiah-Portia angle comes into focus. And even if Portia tends to ruminate in an precious way, Korelitz makes good use of the sociological issues tied up in elite university admissions. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

Portia Nathan is a thirty-eight-year-old admissions officer at Princeton University, a place so discriminating that it can afford to turn down applicants who are “excellent in all of the ordinary ways” in favor of the utterly extraordinary—“Olympic athletes, authors of legitimately published books, Siemens prize winners, working film or Broadway actors, International Tchaikovsky Competition violinists.” Portia compares her job to “building a better fruit basket” and achieves career success by helping her institution pluck the most exotic specimens, but her personal life is permanently on hold because of a traumatic incident from her own college years that she has never come to terms with. Although the reader may unravel the mystery of Portia’s past before the plot does, the novel gleams with acute insights into what most consider a deeply mysterious process.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First Edition edition (April 13, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0446540706
  • ISBN-13: 978-0446540704
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #122,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Jean Hanff Korelitz
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national judo champions, reading season, admissions work
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New Hampshire, Ivy League, New England, Keene Central, Gordon Sternberg, Small World, New Jersey, Jesse Bolton, Elisa Rosen, Martin Quilty, Portia Nathan, West College, Quest School, Nassau Street, Native American, English Department, Sean Aronson, Main Line, Rhode Island, John Halsey, Bryn Mawr, Strong Interest, Sarah Lenaghan, Early Decision, Nassau Hall
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Customer Reviews

49 Reviews
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3.7 out of 5 stars (49 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars "We're all about making citizens of the world.", April 18, 2009
This review is from: Admission (Hardcover)
"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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24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read, April 14, 2009
By BermudaOnion (South Carolina) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   
This review is from: Admission (Hardcover)
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
By skrishna (http://www.skrishnasbooks.com) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   
This review is from: Admission (Hardcover)
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars READING THIS IS TIME OUT OF YOUR LIFE YOU WON'T GET BACK!
This is a long, laborious book centering around a protagonist that you quickly realize you don't care much about, probably because she is never developed. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Debra Montgomery

4.0 out of 5 stars A great read that raises a lot of great questions.
Nearly two weeks later, I am still thinking of the issues the author raised. First, it does have some pretty clear weaknesses - a prickly narrator and pretty obvious plot... Read more
Published 1 month ago by janateach

5.0 out of 5 stars Highest recommendation for this elegant and thoughtful rendering of a woman's journey from disconnection to realization.
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Published 1 month ago by Bookreporter.com

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating insights, fascinating tale
Admission, by Jean Hanff Korelitz, centers on the life and struggles of an admissions officer at Princeton University. Read more
Published 2 months ago by S. Deeth

5.0 out of 5 stars Ivy League Decisions
I wasn't sure about Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel //Admission//. Did I really want to invest 450 pages of reading time on a novel about the Ivy League college admissions process... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Sacramento Book Review

2.0 out of 5 stars I don't know why some books get published.
Maybe I've gotten spoiled on the crazy idea that novels should have a point, or at least be interesting, because Admissions scrapes by indifferently on both counts. Read more
Published 3 months ago by The Six Minute Princess

3.0 out of 5 stars This book needed a better editor


The author of this book is blessed with writing skills most of us would give all our earthly items, that is, beautiful, pitch perfect descriptions, observations and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by janetmanswen

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting glimpse at the admissions
As she nears forty, Portia Nathan is pleased with how well opening the diversity doors to Princeton University as its admissions officer has occurred. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Harriet Klausner

4.0 out of 5 stars Good possibilities...just too long
As other reviewers noted, Admission focuses on a 38-year-old admissions offer at one of the most prestigious Ivy League universities. Read more
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2.0 out of 5 stars Admission
I was thoroughly disappointed with this book. Admission tells the story of the admissions process into a top tier school like Princeton, intertwining the personal story of one of... Read more
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