Steinberg - The Gatekeepers

A New York Times Notable Book

Mr. Steinberg has a sensitive style that is unflinchingly honest in portraying students emotional journeys, evoking empathy in the readerIts testimony to the power of The Gatekeepers that each of these people seeps into your thinking and leaves you wondering what happened to them, much as the characters in a good novel stay with you after you finish it. I really didnt want the book to end.

The New York Times

Excellenta gripping accounta thoroughly engrossing drama depicting how nine overworked members of Wesleyans admissions office accepted roughly 1,800 applicants from almost 7,000if youre still determined to seek the prize of a prestigious college, The Gatekeepers will at least prepare you for the ordeal.

BusinessWeek

A compelling human dramaSteinberg gets informants on both ends of the [admissions] process to reveal their unlovely as well as inspiring emotionsand he presents each with empathy and dignity. The result is riveting: One wants all involved to, if not attain their dreams, at least gain some portion of what they hope for.

San Francisco Chronicle

Impressive in its detail[ The Gatekeepers ] chronicles the ins and outs of the admissions officers way of building each class.

Chicago Tribune

The Gatekeepers is a stunning piece of education reporting. By documenting the aspirations and anxieties of real-life applicants as well as strategies and motives of real-life admissions officers, Jacques Steinberg has demystified the admissions process of an elite private college in compelling fashion. The Gatekeepers blends helpful information with engagingeven suspensefulstorytelling. He describes a distinctly American rite of passage that turns out to be more reasonable than most applicants and parents fearbut far more complex and idiosyncratic than colleges would have us believe.

Edward B. Fiske, editor of The Fiske Guide to Colleges and co-author, with Bruce Hammond, of The Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College

Jacques Steinbergs book is an absolutely fascinating inside look at how some of our most prestigious colleges and universities determine their admissions. Its an engrossing narrative and, while the authors voice is not judgmental, he leaves us with some very searching questions as to how our nations meritocracy is actually shaped by personal decisions and connections and by all-too-human interventionsand whether, for these reasons, it is actually a meritocracy at all.

Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace

The Gatekeepers is an intimate, compassionate and piercingly candid portrait of how America selects it elite. The human stories that Jacques Steinberg unfolds are both uplifting and cautionary, for they show the almost unbearable pressures at work in the admissions process of one outstanding university. If you want to know what it means to play God in contemporary America, read this book.

Samuel G. Freedman, author of Small Victories and Jew vs. Jew

Whether you are the parent of three teenagers or simply curious about the college admissions sweepstakes, you will find The Gatekeepers an absorbing read.

Howard Gardner, author of Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences and Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century

Jacques Steinberg establishes himself as a superb journalist with his honest and absorbing account of the college admissions process. With great skill and insight, he describes the meritocratic choices that colleges make as gatekeepers to the American dream of higher education.

James O. Freedman, President Emeritus, Dartmouth College