Creating a Class

"In real life, Mitchell Stevens is a professor in noisy New York. But for a year and a half, he worked in the admissions office of a bucolic New England college, known for its high academic standards, beautiful campus, and social conscience. Ambitious high schoolers and savvy guidance counselors know that admission to this place is highly competitive. But creating a class, Stevens finds, is a lot more complicated than most people imagine." "Admissions officers love students, but they work for the good of the school. They have to bring in each class "on budget," burnish the statistics so crucial to institutional prestige, and take care of their colleagues in the athletic department and the development office. Stevens shows that the job cannot be done without "systematic preferencing," and racial affirmative action is the least of it. Kids have an edge if their parents can pay full tuition, if they attend high schools with exotic zip codes, if they are athletes - especially football players - and even if they are popular." "Stevens explains how elite colleges and universities have assumed their central role in the production of the nation's most privileged classes. He finds that the individualized evaluation protocols that are a point of pride at top colleges do not create equal educational opportunity, but subtly reinforce class privilege. In the competitive parenting Olympics, the goal is really to raise kids with the attributes most coveted by elite colleges: measurable academic and extracurricular accomplishment and athletic prowess. Good looks, a slender body, and an outgoing personality don't hurt either. "Getting in" has become the test of whether you're a great kid, or a great parent."--BOOK JACKET.