9th February 2011
Confessions of a Prep School College Counselor
“Nothing makes today’s Ivy League admissions officer sit up and take notice more than a flak jacket and flying shrapnel—that is, as long as it’s accompanied by a 5 on the AP physics exam and a combined SAT score of 1420 or better. For the most part, the current books on the subject of elite-college admissions share a numbing sameness, although I did find The Princeton Review’s College Admissions remarkable for its rather caustic counsel: “Misspellings in your application can make you look like a moron,” it advises, and “You probably should not attach a photograph to your application if you are very overweight.” I’d like to have most of these books burned.
17th January 2011
The Hazards of Duke
“Something ugly is going on at the university—a mercenary intensity that has been gathering strength for the past two decades, as the institution made the calculated decision to wrench itself into elite status by dint of its fortune in tobacco money and its sheer ambition. It lured academic luminaries—many of them longer on star power than on intellectual substance—built a fearsome sports program, and turned its admissions department into the collegiate version of a head-hunting firm.
