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Admission
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Admission
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Admission
Audiobook18 hours

Admission

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

"Admissions. Admission. Aren't there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides...It's what we let in, but it's also what we let out."

For years, 38-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as thousands of the nation's brightest students await her decision regarding their academic admission, so too must Portia decide whether to make her own ultimate admission.

Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman's life to its core.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 2, 2012
ISBN9781611139273
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Admission
Author

Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jean Hanff Korelitz is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Plot, You Should Have Known (which aired on HBO in October 2020 as The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, and Donald Sutherland), Admission (adapted as a film in 2013 starring Tina Fey), The Devil and Webster, The White Rose, The Sabbathday River and A Jury of Her Peers, as well as Interference Powder, a novel for children. Her company BOOKTHEWRITER hosts Pop-Up Book Groups in which small groups of readers discuss new books with their authors. She lives in New York City with her husband, Irish poet Paul Muldoon.

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Reviews for Admission

Rating: 3.6810630714285715 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

301 ratings51 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Why did I read Admission?
    I work in higher education and am close to finishing up with my M.Ed. with an emphasis in higher education. Of course I would be intrigued by a fictional book about a side of college many may not see. In addition that I've always had this weird fascination with Princeton so when I discovered the main character worked for Princeton my desire to read Admission only increased.

    What did I think about Portia?
    I really cannot for the life of me understand how funny girl Tina Fey could play someone like Portia. Portia is a complex, deeply flawed character. Seriously this girl just needs some good therapy to work through her many, many issues. I had a hard time sympathizing with her because it seems like most of the issues in her life were her own doing and could have been avoided had she taken the time to stop and this for a moment.

    What did I enjoy in the novel?
    I enjoyed all the discussion revolving around the admission process at Princeton. It's much more intense than I ever could have imagined and that insight alone made this an enjoyable read for me.

    What could have been trimmed?
    The majority of the story. It felt like drama was added just for the sake of drama because the author worried that people would be bored by all the admission talk.

    Do I think this will be a good movie?
    Not so much. I'm actually really surprised this was selected to become a movie. I wonder if perhaps it's just loosely based on the book?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved all the ways this book explored the aspects of "admission": admission to college, confessions, those we allow into our lives, and things we admit to ourselves.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    There are parts of it I thoroughly enjoyed. Parts of it I skimmed through. It definitely fed into my weird obsession of the Ivies. Some of it was predictable, some of it not so much. In the end, satisfying, but not mind blowing. I will say it was a good book to read after all of those Secret Society books.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A fascinating look at the college admission process, with enough story to keep it from getting too dry. Loved the excerpts from student essays that opened each chapter. It was enlightening to see the picture from the point of view of teachers, guidance counselors, admissions officers, students, and parents. I particularly enjoyed the various settings, having spent time in Princeton and on the Dartmouth campus "back in the day". The only thing that kept me from giving this novel the full five stars is a rather unlikely coincidence that crops up late in the story. It didn't really get in the way of my overall enjoyment, however.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fascinating story about the inside world of the admissions process at Princeton University.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Plot developments a little gimmicky. Too superficial an examination of the admissions process. (Yes, I know it's fiction, but still.) Better to read The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg, a non-fiction account of admissions at Wesleyan.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My biggest problem with this novel is that I wished it was a different book.The parts involving the admission process were quite interesting, but weren't enough to carry the book.Portia is the only character that was fleshed out, but I never was really drawn into her drama. All of the other characters were flat, existing only for the purpose of defining Portia's story.Her story should have been more compelling than it was to me. It's hard to say more without spilling the beans on where the story goes. I'll just say that she has had an eventful life, and it is all coming together in this book.However, I really wanted to know more about the teens applying to college. Jeremiah and Simone, from a new, highly non-traditional school, a couple of the kids we were introduced to from the typical prep school, and just enough of Portia to weave them together. That's the book I kept wishing I was reading.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Overall a great story, although there were parts that could have been cut, and details that were unnecessary, leading to a skimming of some pages. The secret that Portia keeps remained a mystery to me until just a few pages before it was revealed, which was exciting, and well worth the read. The characters in general were well developed and likable. I could vividly picture the scenes, which made it all the more interesting. Definitely worth your time!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Admission's title plays off its dual meaning - "admission" being both the act of letting something in and letting something out. After well over a decade as an Ivy League college-admissions officer (first at her alma mater, Dartmouth, and then at Princeton), both of those definitions converge in one academic year for Portia Nathan.Portia's professional life revolves around "travel season," when she visits secondary schools to give presentations to prospective Princeton applicants and answer their questions; "reading season," when the admissions staff is immersed in reviewing thousands of applicant files; and "decision season," when officers discuss and determine the fate of every single applicant in committee. During this particular travel season, one of her visits is to a new experimental school in New Hampshire, where she encounters a former Dartmouth classmate on the faculty and one unusual student who makes a special impression on her; they stay on her mind throughout her other travels, distracting her from the strain in her relationship with her long-time partner, Mark, until he shocks her to attention by an admission of his own. The total immersion of reading season gives Portia an excuse to avoid thinking about her domestic life, while contemplating the files of applicants - including that one unusual student, who turns up for a campus visit along with that faculty member - pulls her in other directions. The approach of decision season finds her being drawn back to some of her own decisions -and non-admissions - in the past, and how they got her to where she is now.The novel mixes the nuts and bolts of the college-admissions process with Portia's story, and I thought author Jean Hanff Korelitz did this very well. Part of her research for the novel included a stint as a seasonal application reader in Princeton University's real-life Admissions Office; while some of the details may apply more at highly selective colleges than to U of State, there's a lot of interesting insight into what colleges look for from prospective students, and what they do with it. Each chapter opens with an excerpt from a college-application essay, and sketches of the applicants Portia is getting to know through the files she's reading are sprinkled throughout the novel. It's not always clear what they have to do with the main plot, but I found them engaging rather than distracting.There are a few threads to the story that are a bit more distracting - for me, the biggest one was the sideline concerning Portia's mother Susannah. It's not irrelevant, and I understand why it's there, but it felt bigger than necessary to me. On the whole, though, this struck me as one of those books where the reader has to be patient and trust the writer; most of the elements that seem random at first really do have a place in the context of revealing Portia's character.I have a passing familiarity with Portia's academic surroundings (I was a faculty wife in my former life with my former husband), and fiction in that setting frequently appeals to me. However, despite that, I saw this as a "domestic" novel; the suspense and drama in the story are of the everyday, character-driven variety, and much of the plot wasn't hard for me to anticipate. I like that too, though, so it wasn't a drawback. But I think one's reaction to the novel depends on how one feels about Portia, ultimately. I liked and related to her, and felt that her personal growth over the year spanned by the story was believable.I 'm not sure that I've found a new addition to my "favorite authors" list, but I do think that Admission will turn out to be one of my favorite works of fiction this year, although I feel like I'm having trouble articulating exactly why it struck such a chord with me. I knew I wanted to read Admission as soon as I started seeing reviews of it last spring, and hearing Jean Hanff Korelitz speak on a panel at the LA Times Festival of Books just reinforced that. It was on my "waiting for the paperback" list until it became one of the first books I bought to read on my new Kindle, and I'm glad I'm not waiting to read it anymore.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed the book because the main character, a college admissions officer, uses her vantage point to speculate on the BIG questions -- what makes a worthwhile life? How do we assign value to a person? The judging involved in Portia's job is inherently interesting. However, I get the feeling that the author saved up all the deep thoughts she had of this nature while she was working in admissions in real life, then included all of them in this book. The novel could have benefitted from a bit more editing!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Admission tells the story of 38 year old Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton University, who along with her colleagues decides the fate of the many hopeful teens who apply each year to Princeton University. Portia's personal story is intertwined with the admission process, from visiting high schools, through reading the applications brimming with academic and social success until the committee meetings in which the students' futures are decided upon. Portia's childhood with a radical feminist single mother is recounted and a secret from the past is first alluded to and finally revealed.Admission drags at first, picks up a bit in the middle, and limps to an unsatisfying ending. Portia is not very sympathetic and ultimately it's hard to really care about her. The supporting characters - her mother, best friend, partner, college boyfriend - are not fully developed and fairly one dimensional, each filling a solitary role. The mother, who is described in greater detail is just not that likable. The story about the admission process was interesting though you're hit over the end with how hard the job of an admission officer is, having to sort through so many gems, maintain fairness, and deal with the fallout from alumni whose kids don't make the cut.Admission concludes with a feel good ending that ties up all the loose strings and left me unsatisfied.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received Admission from LibraryThing's Early Review program and was excited about reading it based on some very good reviews I'd read on other blogs. Once it arrived, though, it fell to the same unfortunate fate as so many books and languished on my shelf for way too long. Once I picked it up I got into the story quickly, and wished I'd started it sooner.I never gave much thought to the college admission procedure, but I loved reading about it. The process is complex and wonderfully interesting. The admission officers have a tough, but very rewarding job, and I found the behind the scenes information fascinating. Portia has her history with an old boyfriend hanging over her head, and this is hinted at throughout the book. The situation isn't revealed until about 3/4 of the way through the book, and I found it to be a little unneeded. At this point in the book I was already invested in the characters and happy with where the story was going without this 'twist'.Overall, Admission is a fascinating story, if a little wordy. For me, the book could have been shorted considerably and not lost any of its appeal. The same arguments about which students should get into Princeton popped up multiple times, and I could have done without the third or fourth rehashing of this issue. But, even with the length, I would still recommend Admission.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've seen a number of other reviewers suggest that Admission is overly long, but I would have to disagree. I purchased this for my Kindle so had no real idea how long it was until I added here (although with 8000+ locations I certainly knew it wasn't short). I finished it in less than a day.The novel is about the life of a Princeton admission officer. The first half is primarily about admissions and what that entails, and the second half about Portia's life.For my part I found the first part to be most interesting. I particularly enjoyed the sample essays that began each chapter
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Admission was very well written however it ended up being a very slow read for me. The story focuses on Portia, an Ivy league admissions officer and her personal problems and her job. I just lost interest over and over throughout the book. It actually took me nearly three months to read, even though I was fairly eager in the beginning to read it. I felt like I was gazing into a snow globe and trying to ascertain more about the main character, Portia. I could see that she was somewhat detached from her life but I could never get inside her head. If you enjoy books that focus solely on the life on one person and their issues, this will be a good read for you.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found "Admission" to be a compelling read -- a fascinating look into the Ivy League admission process, the relationship between a mother and her daughter, the difficulties of growing older, the impact of decades of guilt. Portia, the main character, is not particularly likeable, and that is what makes Korelitz's novel all the better, as you continue to read about all of her neuroses, triumphs, and mistakes.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    i received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program and finally finished it all these months later. I enjoyed the book and its look into the admissions process, made more credible by the author's experience reading applications for Princeton, the setting of the novel. I especially liked how she began each chapter with a little snippet of an imagined college application essay.Portia, the protagonist, isn't a particularly sympathetic or appealing character; she is very absorbed in her work in admissions and her "work" of keeping others at arms length. We're told early on that she has a secret in her past. The direction Portia's personal story was going in was a bit predictable and not terribly believable, in contrast to the author's writing style which is quite compelling and absorbing. Her final "admission" of the secret to her former partner gives one hope that she will continue to open up about her life, but I felt it would have been more satisfying if she also made a personal admission about her actions in her work.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book was interesting for the most part. Yet, I wasn't really sure where the story was going. The admissions aspect was what made me request this, but there was just a little too much of that in the book. On the up side, the writing is snappy and flows well. My problem is that once I put it down it was hard to pick up again. I had lost a feel for the characters. My advice is if you pick it up, don't put it down again until you're finished.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This novel goes beyond the admissions process of an Ivy league college. This is the story that delves into admissions--both the process to be admitted into a college and the act of telling the truth. The storyline was rather predictable. The main character is less than frank in every personal relationship in her life. From the start we realize that she has experienced something in her past that she has revealed to no one, making it easier for us to piece together her background story before the author has to reveal it to us. After a leisurely though steady pace, the ending felt rushed with too many loose ends. Not to say a sequel or a longer work of fiction would have been more appropriate, but perhaps the story of Portia's relationship with her mom, her reaction to caring for a newborn, her new role of mother and whether she tells those people in her life the story of her past, etc. would make for a more compelling novel.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Portia is a work-a-holic who buried herself in her work as an admissions officer at Princeton at the cost of all of her personal relationships. She is estrangered from her 1970's hippie mom, now in her 60's, who cannot understand what happened to the relationship she had with her daughter. Her long-term live-in boyfriend has left her to father a child with a near-stranger. She is ignoring a man from Maine who is pursuing her romantically, even though she is attracted to him. She has, instead of living a full and rich life, lost herself in the lives of 17-year-olds who want to go to Princeton. Ultimately, the secret she has kept for 17 years is revealed, and the reader gets a small glimmer of understanding as to why Portia has behaves as she has done.I found the book to be overly long. There are endlessly descriptions of Princeton applicants, their obsessiveness, their neediness. There is a long and complex telling of Portia's secret. There are multiple backstories happening, some that seem to have no really strong purpose. 100 pages of editing-out would have made this a much better story. As it was, I kept falling asleep as I was trying to read it, as so many pages seemed so much like every other one. I came away feeling unsatisfied with the tale's conclusion.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Admission is the story of Portia, a Princeton admissions officer, who struggles daily with the responsibility of deciding who will be allowed to attend Princeton and who will not. She is utterly wrapped up in her applicants, elated for the underprivileged who she knows will thrive at the school, and heartbroken for the legacy kids who won't make it. She is passionate about the selection process, vehemently defending it to angry parents and even to her own cynical mother. All of this presents a unique and interesting view into the college application and acceptance process with many well researched details. It is not until well into the book that we begin to learn that Portia's focus and passion for her job are covering up some dark secrets from her past.I really enjoyed this book! The unusual setting and plot device held my attention and drew me into a world I had not even contemplated before. I could have done with one or two fewer rants about how extremely difficult it is to say no to qualified applicants, but the interesting, likeable characters and beautiful ending made it all worthwhile.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "Admission? Aren't there two sides to the word? ... It's what we let in but it's also what we let out."Admission, by Jean Hanff Korelitz is a fascinating look at the admission process at an Ivy League university through the eyes of Portia, an admissions officer. It is also a compelling portrait of Portia - the secret she has harbored for years, has difficulty admitting even to herself, and the way her secret has informed every aspect of her life and her relationships.Admission is an excellent, engrossing journey that is not to be missed!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I know some have said that this book was a bit too wordy and dense. There are times in your life when you want to get deeply into a very dense book. I am in just such a time now where I needed to be very involved in Portia's story. That is really what this book is about at its inner core. All of the details of the admission process can be read in many non-fiction books written on the subject. After all, in the book Portia states that every admissions person who leaves the profession writes a book!Portia's story is one of buried guilt and all the ramifications it had on her adult life. In a life is stranger than fiction storyline Portia has a chance to come face to face with her past and redeem her life. Of this I was glad that the author did not rely on the popular True Confessions magazines of old endings....a life ruined forever.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Quite a book---both in length and detail! I thoroughly enjoyed the pieces of application forms added at the beginnings of the chapters. The story behind the story made me exhausted for Portia. Decisions have so many unintended consequences, both good and bad and this was a fascinating description of one person's initial decision and what followed and essentially controlled the rest of her life. It would be an entirely different story for each and every person, no matter what the decision so I guess that could stop us all in our tracks as we look at the "two roads diverged in a yellow woods" conundrum when we are facing any decision.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I enjoyed Jean Hanff Korelitz's "The White Rose" immensely, and was equally intrigued by the college setting and plot premise of this book. And because I do enjoy her writing and have enormous respect for the earnestness with which she researched and portrays the college admission process, I was captivated by those portions of the book dealing with Portia's professional life. There came a point however, about midway into the book, where the growing cast of stereotypical characters and wildly improbable plot twists sank this from a 5-star to a less enthusiastic 3-star review. Susannah, a mother so wrapped up in saving the world that she's oblivious to her own daughter's plight. John Halsey, the sensitive, well-bred, but oh-so-well-meaning amd sexy former Dartmouth classmate with whom Portia is reunited on her visit to the Quest School. And so on. And Portia has a secret - we know that early on, as it is referred to in vague references when she meets John, and It surfaces again with growing glints of clarity as the novel progresses, finally bursting forth like the penultimate episode of a Lifetime melodrama. My empathy for Portia evaporated at that point, and I finished the book feeling angry and annoyed with the implausible plot line and tidy feel-good denouement.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book engaged me totally from the first chapter. I worked at university in the same building as the admissions offfice, so I am familiar with the rigors and joys of that office. I also remember gaggles of prospective students on campus tours with anxious parents in tow. Admission captured all of the excitement, angst and hope of adolescents making application to Princeton. It is extremely well researched and written. Anyone who has ever applied to a college or university or had a child who made application will be immediately drawn into this fascinating novel. Paragraphs from fictional essays that head each chapter will make every reader remember his or her diffficult struggle to find just the right experience to capture the attention of the admissions office. Portia is an admissions officer at Princeton sharing a home and a long-term relationship with an English professor. Her assignment is to cover the northeast to recruit students and answer their questions about Princeton. She is a fiercely independent and private person with the loneliness that often accompanies those personality characteristics. Her past and present collide on a recruiting trip to New Hampshire, and the novel evolves very cleverly from there. I haven't read Korelitz's previous novels, but plan to do so. I haven't been this impressed with an author in a very long time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was very pleased to find out that I was chosen to receive this book from the LTER programme. I'd read one previous book by this author called Sabbathday River and that was great so I anticipated good things from Admission. I wasn't disappointed.Portia is an admissions officer from Princeton. Her job entails traveling to various high schools to present information about Princeton University and everything it has to offer. Portia's life becomes complicated when she encounters someone she knew from her university days and a flood of unwanted memories is unleashed.I was engrossed in this novel - not from the first page but certainly not long after. The characters are well-developed and likable and the story is nicely written and made me keep turning the pages. The behind-the-scenes process involved in applying to an ivy-league university in America is fascinating. Highly recommend.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm not really sure what to make of this book. The premise sounded interesting, but this book was slow to start, and it never really picked up for me. It didn't draw me in and make me want to keep reading.The main character, Portia, is an admissions officer at Princeton. As a result, we are subjected to overly long descriptions of what it takes to be admitted to an Ivy League school. If you're a high school junior or senior, this may be compelling reading for you. If not, b-o-r-i-n-g. This book could easily have been half its size and still told the characters' stories.Like another reviewer before me, I too figured out Portia's secret in the beginning of the book. Figuring it out so early is another reason why I never felt compelled to keep reading. And, I too never understood why Portia did many of the things she did. This book just bothered me. Throughout the book, Portia kept making poor choices with no real reason why. I never felt connected to the main character, and what she did at the end, well, that was just plain wrong. I can't say I recommend this book. And I can't help but think that the week I spent reading it would have been better spent with a better book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    gave this book an extra star because all the princeton references were fun. author tended to repeat the main themes too often, but the story did draw me in and i had a hard time putting the book down.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My second Early Reviewers book in a row, and unfortunately I didn't like this one all that much better. It's written by a married woman who went to Dartmouth, lives in Princeton, and worked as a part-time admissions reader for Princeton. The protagonist is a married woman who went to Dartmouth and now works in Princeton's Admissions Office. They say "write what you know," but this seemed more like a somewhat stilted memoir than a novel - i.e. her actual experiences were not transformed into fiction that worked.First of all, the writing: much of the book seemed like lectures about the admissions process and the virtues of Princeton. I would care very much about that if my child were trying to get into Princeton, and if I were reading an advice book. But in a novel? It was tedious.Second, the characters. Before even 75 pages have gone by, she's sleeping with a guy she just met at a private school at which she's recruiting. This is a literary, not a moral objection: for her to do something so ethically and professionally wrong, to facilitate our suspension of disbelief we need a lot more character development. Any professional qualms she might have are given very short shrift. Has she done anything like this before (which might help explain the lapse)? And what's so attractive about this guy she just met?If the book had begun with her marriage (which, it turned out later, was in trouble), and had better developed the character of her husband, we might have empathized and understood more. Next, her own character. We listen to her speaking (as I said before, in didactic sentences real people just don't use) a lot, but we never really comprehend what leads her to suddenly not turn on her heat all winter and not shower all winter and wear the same clothes all winter (and then we find out that, oddly, she did the same thing as a student at Dartmouth); and then this new boyfriend appears and doesn't seem to mind all this and sleeps with her again?!Then there was the old boyfriend at Dartmouth, whose attraction we also don't really understand except that he's gorgeous. And, finally, the plot, which I figured out just before she slept with the guy at the school, i.e. in the first 60 pages (the pun of the title is one clue). And of course I won't give it away, but what it caused her to do, ultimately, just didn't ring true for me - which is what I would say about the entire book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a great book! I went into this with some trepidation - it's 450 pages long and I have a 10-month-old. But the mounting urgency of the plot, and the protagonist's secret, which is gradually revealed, pulled me in with increasing force. I've always been interested in college admissions, and would even like to be an admissions officer someday, and Korelitz's insider description of this world is fascinating. The emotional portrait of the protagonist is equally compelling.Korelitz's protagonist, Portia Nathan, is a reserved, intelligent, careful woman who reveals herself to the reader piece by piece. She's a Dartmouth graduate who works for the Princeton admissions office, and takes a lot of flak for it - mostly from angry parents who think getting in should be easier than it is. What no one knows about her is that she's kept a secret, from everyone, for years. This is a restrained but deeply moving book, and intellectually stimulating as well. I look forward to more from Korelitz.