The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges--And Who Gets Left Outside the Gates

by Daniel Golden

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "A fire-breathing, righteous attack on the culture of superprivilege."--Michael Wolff, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fire and Fury, in the New York Times Book Review... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400097967
• ISBN13: 9781400097968
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 323 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Good Book...Disturbing Truth

After reading this book I was embarrassed by my naivety. I had always thought that our country's "premier" colleges were special places where the best and brightest gathered. Obviously that is not the case. The admissions practices outlined in the text appeared to me to be little more than discrimination by wealth. I must confess I am very grateful to Mr. Golden for writing this book. As disturbing as it was to read, I could not put it in down. It has changed the way I look at higher education, the business world, and politics. In the future when I see the resume of a CEO or political leader I will be looking for a state university as a mark of merit and real world experience.

Awaken

I hope that the countless real examples in this book will awaken the majority of the Chinese community in the US, who have been absolutely stupid in favor of Affirmative Action, who have consistently supported such politicians and who have stubbornly regarded themselves as part of the "minority" - a term was created and has been carefully refined over the years to serve one single purpose: Give unconditional racial preference to the "under-represented" particular ethnical groups of which Chinese have never been and will ever be part at all. Yes, during the college admission, many factors ought to be considered in addition to SAT or other academic scores. History and statistical analyses have shown repeatedly that perfect scores in SAT don't necessarily imply scholastic excellence in college; excellent GPA in undergraduate studies or GRE doesn't necessarily predict good academic achievement in graduate school or in the future academia. Besides, a harmonic society needs not only scientists, but many other good-will personalities with great virtues. I strongly agree that other personal characteristics such as moral, integrity, empathy, and capacity to love and give should be given more weight than SAT scores in the admission process. Yet the current admissions system has gone so far to the other extreme. "It's silly to pretend that every low scoring applicant (from under-represented minority) should be admitted to one of America's premier universities with the expectation that somehow these students will learn materials that they missed in K-12".

A juicy, provocative, principled book

While it's widely believed that the rich and powerful can buy their way into top colleges, this book replaces rumor with hard evidence: dozens of specific, juicy examples, captured with a Pulitzer Prize winner's journalistic precision. This is a difficult job, since it can rarely be said with certainty that someone would not have been accepted without their big financial donation or famous parent. Golden understands this, and doesn't stretch facts or pound points. He just presents dozens of cases of apparent corruption, letting the facts speak for themselves. The author repeatedly contrasts the academic records of wealthy students who were accepted with the records of better but poorer students who did not get in at the same college in the same year. Sometimes, these stories are even supplemented by internal evaluations made by the admissions offices themselves -- as when Golden notes that Senator Bill Frist's son got the lowest possible rating from Princeton's admissions office for academic achievement, and was admitted anyway. While it is standard for college admissions staff to point out the "complexity" and "context" of each case to defend seemingly incongruous outcomes, the author makes these acrobatics difficult with his relentless stream of examples and hard facts. Golden manages to weave this rigor and precision into a sharp, interesting narrative, moving easily from Princeton and Harvard's affinity for the undistinguished and undisciplined sons of Bill Frist and Al Gore to Brown University's pandering to the children of movie stars to Duke's wooing of the children of the rich. It is a juicy read. Undoubtedly, at least part of what drives this book is the author's muckraking anger. He admits to being outraged on behalf of the Asian students who have to meet higher standards than the wealthy children of white donors and politicians. This outrage, from my perspective, was a plus and not a minus. Golden's idealism is also evident in the positive chapter about Caltech, The Cooper Union, and Berea College, three institutions where wealth, connections, and power play no role in admissions. He lauds Caltech for being one of the nation's best private colleges despite having an admissions process based on merit alone. It is certainly tempting to believe that this purist idealism could spread to other institutions, too. Still, everybody admits that giving handouts like easier admission is a simple way for universities to cozy up to money and power. Golden is honest about the fact that the only way to deal with corruption in the long run is to institute conflict of interest rules similar to those which exist in law school admissions and other fields. This is a smart, scathing, provocative, and angry book that shines a bright light on affirmative action for the rich and is guaranteed to produce some embarrassing questions for those who perpetuate it.