Book Review: The Gatekeepers, by Jacques Steinberg

This book is essentially an outsiders account of the college admissions process. In 2001, Jacques Steinberg, then a journalist for the New York Times Review on Higher Education, took a few months off of his desk job to shadow a college admissions officer at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Steinberg chose to shadow officer Ralph Figueroa, a Stanford grad who attended UCLA Law School before ending up at Occidental College (Obama's Alma Mater) in California as an admissions officer. The book is constantly revealing more about Ralph, from his relationship experience and connections within the college admissions field to the way he fits his Mexican-American heritage into a traditionally "WASPy" field.

A lot of what I deduced from the book was in fact the diversity of the readers in admissions offices and that as a general rule, especially at schools that have a committee decision process, there will usually be someone to speak out for your application. Many times during the admissions round at Wesleyan, counselors got personally attached to applicants and there was a surprising amount of give and take in how the admissions process works. On one hand, this can be seen as more random and less formulaic, but in general I think it speaks to the desire to bring interesting people to the campuses of elite institutions, culminating in genuinely diverse campuses.

The race card came up several times throughout the book, especially in respect to Ralphs Mexican-American heritage and the role of one African American young woman who ends up at Yale. After reading the book, I believe that I have a further understanding of how ethnicity and geographic location really play into the process. In the example of the African American and another Native American applicant, it really all boils down to the unique cultures and hardships that those applicants have gone through that culminates in them being interesting. Likewise a white applicant who has gone through financial hardship or problems at home has an equally unique story to bring to the campus.

The format of this book is really what made it so enjoyable. Though much of Steinberg's observation occurs in the traditional college admissions office, a lot of his story is told through profiling six or seven individual students from across the country. It's interesting to see where the students apply and how the college admissions officers interpret the paper representation of each person.

Overall, this was a really fantastic book that was able to squeeze the rough details and objective advice into an easy to read and ultimately enjoyable package. Now I'm even considering a career in the admissions field, as an interesting way to funnel all of your experience in life to evaluating others - each person in their own way.