Purchase
How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges -- and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates
Crown
September 2006
On Sale: September 5, 2006
336 pages
ISBN: 1400097967
EAN: 9781400097968
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
Every spring thousands of middle-class and lower-income
high-school seniors learn that they have been rejected by
America’s most exclusive colleges. What they may never learn
is how many candidates like themselves have been passed over
in favor of wealthy white students with lesser
credentials—children of alumni, big donors, or
celebrities.
In this explosive book, the Pulitzer
Prize–winning reporter Daniel Golden argues that America,
the so-called land of opportunity, is rapidly becoming an
aristocracy in which America’s richest families receive
special access to elite higher education—enabling them to
give their children even more of a head start. Based on two
years of investigative reporting and hundreds of interviews
with students, parents, school administrators, and
admissions personnel—some of whom risked their jobs to speak
to the author—The Price of Admission exposes the
corrupt admissions practices that favor the wealthy, the
powerful, and the famous.
In The Price of
Admission, Golden names names, along with grades and
test scores. He reveals how the sons of former vice
president Al Gore, one-time Hollywood power broker Michael
Ovitz, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist leapt ahead of
more deserving applicants at Harvard, Brown, and Princeton.
He explores favoritism at the Ivy Leagues, Duke, the
University of Virginia, and Notre Dame, among other
institutions. He reveals that colleges hold Asian American
students to a higher standard than whites; comply with Title
IX by giving scholarships to rich women in “patrician
sports” like horseback riding, squash, and crew; and repay
congressmen for favors by admitting their children. He also
reveals that Harvard maintains a “Z-list” for well-connected
but underqualified students, who are quietly admitted on the
condition that they wait a year to enroll.
The
Price of Admission explodes the myth of an American
meritocracy—the belief that no matter what your background,
if you are smart and diligent enough, you will have access
to the nation’s most elite universities. It is must reading
not only for parents and students with a personal stake in
college admissions, but also for those disturbed by the
growing divide between ordinary and privileged Americans.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy