Getting in: Inside the College Admissions Process

William Henry Paul | Bill Paul

1 What the Admissions Office Did With Your Application
While not exactly a guide to getting into a good school, this book is full of insight on the admissions process.

There are lots of useful tips to be gleaned from the author's true stories of five students (names changed) applying to Princeton.

For example, there's sometimes an enormous difference a good letter of recommendation can make in an applicant's file. Last summer, a student tour guide and Admissions Office volunteer at a prestigious Massachusetts college said that every letter of recommendation is basically the same, glowing text, and so these are given little consideration by the Admissions people. After reading Paul's book, I am convinced that that student was mistaken; I see now how incredibly important a very well-written letter can be. And Paul tells why, in perfect, practical detail.

This page-turner is a great book; it clears up the mysteries, identifies the vagaries, and reveals the sheer humanity of the admissions process. Satisfying reading for the burnt-out parent who needs a break from the Peterson Guide... and a "must" for every high school guidance counsellor.

2 Excellent insights into the admission process.
Getting your kid into a good college is a nerve-racking process for most parents. It certainly has been for us. We have found the customer reviews in Amazon very helpful. That prompts us to distill our ratings of the various guidebooks.

The best short reference on each college is the Princeton Review of The Best (311) Colleges. It gives ratings of academic quality, difficulty of admission, percentage admitted, etc. There is also a brief summary of college life and what each place might be looking for.

Peterson Guide is comprehensive, and has long write-ups for each school. There is a front section for each school, listed alphabetically within each state, and a back section with detailed profiles of selected institutions.

Fiske's guide is interesting, but he basically has something good to say for each school, so careful reading between the lines and for "damning with faint praise" is called for.

The Yale Insider's Guide is extremely subjective, with different students writing various reviews. We did not find it too reliable, except in conjunction with other books.

Likewise for Barrron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges. Recent alumni write of their (invariably positive) experiences. Take it with a grain of salt, or read carefully between the lines.

Choosing the Right College by ISN was extremely helpful. Some readers criticized it for being allegedly right wing. We did not find it so. Rather, knowing the point of view of the authors helped us evaluate their observations. Other books do not make their biases explicit. A feature of the book we found particularly helpful was the naming of excellent professors and departments in each college.

Antonoff's College Finder was interesting only in conjunction with other books.

Three books written from the perspective of college admissions officers were very interesting and helpful. They are The College Admissions Mystique, by Mayher, Getting In, by Bill Paul, and most of all A is for Admission by Michelle Hernandez. We strongly recommend that parents and the kids who are the applicants read at least one of these.

Another very helpful book was You're Gonna Love This College Guide, by Marty Nemko. It takes the student through the decision process of big vs. small, urban vs. country, elite vs. the level just below, geography, and so forth. That really got our daughter unstuck in her thinking process.

Loren Pope is another helpful author for those who think that not getting into Harvard is the end of the world.

Three books we did not find to be particularly helpful are Getting Into Any College, by Jim Good and Lisa Lee, The National Review College Guide, by Charles Sykes and Brad Miner (too out of date), and The Real Freshman Handbook, by Jennifer Hanson.

One book we found to be unexpectedly useful was Getting Into Medical School Today, by Scott Plantz, et. al. Even if your child is not interested in medical school, this book puts college in perspective for any post-college program.

We hope readers find our review helpful.

3 An even-handed look into the alchemy of college admissions
I read this book when it came out 3 years ago and I was directing the college placement efforts of an independent boarding school. I was impressed enough by the depth of Bill Paul's research and analysis of the admissions process at Princeton that I not only invited Bill to speak at a parents' day presentation at the school but ordered 30 copies of the book and put them up for sale after the event. Within ten minutes after Bill spoke, every copy-- including mine-- was gone.

Getting In follows a handful of accomplished high school seniors through the admissions process, offering examples of their essays, snippets of conversations and interviews, and other illuminating vignettes of senior year. At the same time, Bill shadows Fred Hargadon, the Princeton admissions dean, as he attempts to read all the applications and make what would seem to even well seasoned admissions professionals some extremely tough decisions.

The worth of this book lies in its accurate reflection of reality; it suggests that admission to one of the most selective (1 of every 11 applicants) schools is determined not only by academic excellence and extracurricular entrepreneurialism, but by the luck of the draw as well. Indeed, at one point in the book, Hargadon admits-- as I've heard him do on other occasions-- that if the admitted Princeton freshman class were somehow eliminated, he could fashion a statistically identical class from the rejected applicants.

This is not a how-to book; rather, it is a book that gives students with high admissions aspirations-- and their parents-- a context that will prepare them well for realities of the admissions game.