Selingo, who was embedded in three different admissions offices-a selective private university, a leading liberal arts college, and a flagship public campus-closely observed gatekeepers as they made their often agonizing and sometimes life-changing decisions.
In Who Gets In and Why, journalist and higher education expert Jeffrey Selingo dispels entrenched notions of how to compete and win at the admissions game, and reveals that teenagers and parents have much to gain by broadening their notion of what qualifies as a “good college.” Hint: it’s not all about the sticker on the car window. Getting into a top-ranked college has never seemed more impossible, with acceptance rates at some elite universities dipping into the single digits. At the end of the day, colleges gamble on students they believe are right for them at a particular moment, inevitably denying admission to superbly qualified students.From award-winning higher education journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Selingo comes a revealing look from inside the admissions office-one that identifies surprising strategies that will aid in the college search.
He describes just how competitive these institutions are and how mysterious is the weighting of their varied criteria - test scores, extracurriculars, geographic region, AP courses, among many others. “I was surprised to learn just how enamored they are with brand names, as if being admitted is a badge of honor, a game to be won,” Selingo says. Students seeking to advance in life as far and fast as possible focus on the select institutions, where chances of admission are notoriously slim. colleges and universities are “buyers,” wooing students to enroll via tuition discounts and “merit” (rather than need-based) awards. But only about 50 institutions enjoy such lofty reputations: The majority of U.S. To explain the admissions context, Selingo defines institutions as either “buyers” or “sellers.” “Sellers” offer a brand name and exclusivity they don’t have to discount tuition to fill a class and can provide primarily need-based financial aid. It also considers the historical and current effects of the high school counseling process, early decision, legacies and athletes, and most recently, test-optional applications.
His clearly written, statistically rich analysis includes the perspective of several representative student applicants.
What he discovered was a complicated, imprecise, fluctuating system. For nearly two years, Selingo was embedded in admissions offices at three institutions: Emory, a major private university in Atlanta Dickinson, a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania and the public flagship University of Washington, in Seattle.
0 kommentar(er)
