Recently I read a novel I really liked, 'Admission', by Jean Hanff Korelitz. The title of the book is actually rather subtle. In the first instance, it seems to apply simply and directly to the quasi-vocation of the heroine, Portia Nathan, a Princeton admissions officer.But as the story unfolds, the title turns out to also refer to the legal meaning of admission (i.e., a confession of a sort) and finally, to one particular admission decision of one candidate to Princeton, on which the heroine stakes her career.
The basic appeal of the book is obvious. Ms. Korelitz has published four novels, but her day job the last few years has been as a reader of Princeton admission applications. So the book offers a peek behind the curtain from someone who knows, at the actual workaday process of Ivy League admissions, a subject of absorbing interest to anyone who's been through it (twice in the last seven years, undergrad and professional school, with oldest child). The novel spans roughly an academic year, September to April, during which Portia Nathan makes presentations to secondary schools in her assigned area, reads and evaluates admissions application - this being a novel, the essays of the applicants are of particular interest to her - discusses her job and Princeton admissions with all sorts of students and parents ar various stress levels, participates on the admission committee that makes the ultimate decision on these matters, and finally becomes so involved in one special application that she puts her job on the line for that young person. It's all fascinating stuff for an outsider, written by someone in a position to know who writes awfully well.
(Some full disclosure here. My stepson graduated from Princeton in May of 2008, so the setting of the novel was of particular interest to me. I attended the graduation. If I can believe the novel - and on this point, I do - Princeton seeks to admit a class of brilliant kids who are not self conscious about either the brilliance or the Ivy League status. From what I saw, admissions does a great job on the brilliance. The absence of self-consciousness? I'm not so sure.
Also, Portia Nathan makes the same point to just about every one she meets, that Princeton is looking for more than academic ability, that 'little extra something' that sets the applicant apart. That would be just wonderful if Princeton were the only elite institution with that criterion. But Stanford also looks for that little extra something, as does Harvard, as does Yale, as do all of them. The practical result is that an entire cottage industry exists, specializing in creating that little extra something on a mass produced basis. Obviously, when everybody has that special cachet, no one does.
The practical effect of all this is a strong statement to the youth of the land, that, if you want to join the establishment, you had better have done something noteworthy before you're 17. This is almost certainly an appalling thought to both the author and her alter ego. (One of the best short passages in the book is a little section where Portia speculates how many Princeton undergrads wrestle uneasily with some version of impostor syndrome.) But I do believe that an insistence on some sort of labored, artificial precocity in applicants is one of the consequences, doubtless unintended, of this emphasis on 'something special'. Two generations ago, James Michener opined that nothing a man (sic) did before he was 40 was really of much value, that that time was all preparation. That's probably too emphatic the other way. But if I had to choose between the two, I'll take Michener.
One other point. There's a big emphasis throughout the book on the importance of diversity, the end of the white male bastion of privilege. Well and good - I don't think any one really disagrees with this. But I was struck by one factoid I ran across while reading the second volume of Rick Atkinson's history of American troops in Europe, The Day of Battle. In commenting on the extraordinary demographic breadth of the US Army in World War II, he used Princeton as an example. (These days, Princeton and/or Stanford seem to be the universal stand-ins for elite universities.) Eighty-four percent of the graduating class of 1942 joined the armed forces. Both the valedictorian and salutatorian joined as enlisted men.
So I don't know. Sixty years ago, Princeton may have been a fortress of privilege, but when push came to shove, the privileged joined the rank and file. Looking back at the brilliant young people of the class of 2008, I wondered how many of them would have the same sense of obligation in a true national crisis. For sure I couldn't envision too many of them doing KP. The thought crossed my mind that underlying all this diversity (with that 'little something special' yet) was the same old 'noblesse', but without the same old 'oblige'. I wondered whether that was really all that much of an improvement.
The background was not the only thing I liked about 'Admission' - a slight, but well written, well executed little book. The book has other interesting aspects, and I am going to devote another post to them. But this one is long enough.
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