Take a photo of a barcode or cover
102 reviews for:
Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania
Frank Bruni
3.94 AVERAGE
102 reviews for:
Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania
Frank Bruni
3.94 AVERAGE
This is one of the few non-fiction books my boss has told me to read and then I actually read the whole thing. I didn't even skim! Fascinating exploration into the pressures teens feel about getting into college and why it has become such a frenzy over the last decade or so. Highly recommend to teens and parents whose children are any age!
Should be required reading for kids in high school and their parents. Fascinating and helpful--I only wish I had read a year ago!
A good reality check about our college obsessed society. Covers a lot of things that were in the back of my awareness, but he puts them into words. I will definitely have my kids read this when they start applying.
If you’re a parent, I recommend you read this. Even if you’re not a parent, it’s still an important and fascinating book. But for parents–and especially those with young children–Frank Bruni provides a lot of insight about why it’s essential to cultivate a different mentality toward educational goals. To sum it up, Bruni is out to prove that we’re doing it wrong. Backed by statistics, research, and interesting anecdotes, he ruminates on the cost of pushing students too hard; of students becoming fixated on a certain university and not receiving an acceptance letter; of schools that have drastically lowered admissions rates in order to boost their perception of elitism. Even former university admissions officers or administrators are critical of the system, Bruni points out. Bruni also frequently visits the idea that the college you attend is less important than what you make of your college experience. For example, Bruni says that the choice of major, internships, extracurricular activities, and taking on various leadership roles throughout undergrad is more indicative of success. He also writes that choosing an institution for graduate school should be a weightier decision than the choice of school for an undergrad degree. It’s a great book–short, clean, persuasive–and I’m sure I’ll think of it often as my daughter gets older.
“College has no monopoly on the ingredients for professional success or for a life well lived.”
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
I'm definitely not the target audience of Bruni's book because I wholeheartedly agreed with his thesis from the outset, but it was still worth a read. The delivery is an interesting mix of journalism, opinion, lit review, and a touch of memoir. The data officer in me feels compelled to point out that Bruni leans on anecdotes and lists of names pretty heavily, especially at the beginning, and that the plural of anecdote is not data.
Anyway. I liked that he acknowledged up front that the kind of mania he describes only exists within bastions of serious privilege and is not representative of the general population. Nonetheless, a lot of the stories resonated with my experiences of how frantic the college admissions game has become, the way it distorts higher education toward being a commodity, and how much we need a return to sanity and common sense in our approach.
I also liked that he focused on the full scope of preferential admissions, including athletes, legacies, and the children of major donors, not just the usual race-based affirmative action. There was an interesting story about Bill Frist's son being admitted to Princeton despite a truly subpar application. That year, the other four students who applied from his high school—all of whom had stronger academic records than the younger Frist—were also admitted, presumably to keep those parents from squawking about the injustice. This was a huge spike in that school's admit rate at Princeton compared the years before and after. Frist, it should be noted, is opposed to affirmative action... unless it helps his own kid, I guess.
I'm not naive enough to be surprised by this kind of maneuvering, but seeing it described in print felt vindicating. Stanford was not so careful about perceptions of unfairness when I was in high school. I lost all respect for their admissions process (and developed some lingering disdain toward the university in general) based on my own high school experience and watching how the admissions decisions shook out my year, with a blatant and striking preference toward legacies. Family history was clearly not the tiebreaker; it was the factor that made a student "qualified" to attend, over and above the content of the application. Not that I'm holding onto any bitterness there. :)
Really, what this all made me think of was the students I've spoken with as an alumni interviewer for Penn. Not one out of the fifteen high school seniors I've interviewed has been admitted. Almost all were fully qualified and could undoubtedly have succeeded there. Two were truly exceptional—certainly better candidates than I was, based on what I learned about them. And none were admitted. Given the university's one-in-fourteen admit rate for regular decision last year, my 0% success rate is only slightly low. Bruni points to 2004 as the year when things started getting really bad in the admissions game, which is also the year I started college. What I'm saying is that probably I would not be a Penn grad if I'd been born ten years later, and that's just weird to consider. Here's this accomplishment I'm pretty proud of that would probably be out of my reach today, and that difference would in no way reflect something about me.
Which is why I'm glad his underlying argument is sound: you can get a great education basically anywhere if you're willing to work for it. Fingers crossed that this book makes it into the hands of the stressed-out students and parents who need it.
Anyway. I liked that he acknowledged up front that the kind of mania he describes only exists within bastions of serious privilege and is not representative of the general population. Nonetheless, a lot of the stories resonated with my experiences of how frantic the college admissions game has become, the way it distorts higher education toward being a commodity, and how much we need a return to sanity and common sense in our approach.
I also liked that he focused on the full scope of preferential admissions, including athletes, legacies, and the children of major donors, not just the usual race-based affirmative action. There was an interesting story about Bill Frist's son being admitted to Princeton despite a truly subpar application. That year, the other four students who applied from his high school—all of whom had stronger academic records than the younger Frist—were also admitted, presumably to keep those parents from squawking about the injustice. This was a huge spike in that school's admit rate at Princeton compared the years before and after. Frist, it should be noted, is opposed to affirmative action... unless it helps his own kid, I guess.
I'm not naive enough to be surprised by this kind of maneuvering, but seeing it described in print felt vindicating. Stanford was not so careful about perceptions of unfairness when I was in high school. I lost all respect for their admissions process (and developed some lingering disdain toward the university in general) based on my own high school experience and watching how the admissions decisions shook out my year, with a blatant and striking preference toward legacies. Family history was clearly not the tiebreaker; it was the factor that made a student "qualified" to attend, over and above the content of the application. Not that I'm holding onto any bitterness there. :)
Really, what this all made me think of was the students I've spoken with as an alumni interviewer for Penn. Not one out of the fifteen high school seniors I've interviewed has been admitted. Almost all were fully qualified and could undoubtedly have succeeded there. Two were truly exceptional—certainly better candidates than I was, based on what I learned about them. And none were admitted. Given the university's one-in-fourteen admit rate for regular decision last year, my 0% success rate is only slightly low. Bruni points to 2004 as the year when things started getting really bad in the admissions game, which is also the year I started college. What I'm saying is that probably I would not be a Penn grad if I'd been born ten years later, and that's just weird to consider. Here's this accomplishment I'm pretty proud of that would probably be out of my reach today, and that difference would in no way reflect something about me.
Which is why I'm glad his underlying argument is sound: you can get a great education basically anywhere if you're willing to work for it. Fingers crossed that this book makes it into the hands of the stressed-out students and parents who need it.
The most important statement I can say about this book is that every student should read this book in their freshmen or sophomore year of high school--yes, high school. Bruni's exploration into 3-Card Monte structure that is higher education when it comes to seducing students should be understood by all students as it has many long-term implications for them. Throughout the book, Bruni systematically breaks down the traditional mindset to aspire to elite colleges, noting how success in getting into them and success as a result of attending them is drastically overrated and over-played. He highlights a range of approaches and strategies that students should use to determine what form of higher education is best for them.
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced