"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.
Critics hailed Korelitz’s ability to put a human face on what many consider to be a merciless process. Compassionate, vulnerable, and surprisingly likable, protagonist Portia Nathan struck a chord with critics, who described her as “wonderfully complex” (Los Angeles Times) and “utterly real” (Entertainment Weekly). Korelitz, a Dartmouth graduate and former Princeton admissions reader, offers a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the college admission process. Critics were split, however, on whether parents with teens should seek out this title. On the one hand, Admission is a helpful guide for parents and students interested in learning about admission etiquette. On the other, the novel may strike terror in the hearts of parents with Ivy League hopes and bright, but unexceptional, children. Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Jean Hanff Korelitz was born and raised in New York and graduated from Dartmouth College and Clare College, Cambridge. She is the author of one book of poems, THE PROPERTIES OF BREATH, and three previous novels, A JURY OF HER PEERS, THE SABBATHDAY RIVER and THE WHITE ROSE, as well as a novel for children, INTERFERENCE POWDER. She has also published essays in the anthologies MODERN LOVE and BECAUSE I SAID SO, and in the magazines VOGUE, REAL SIMPLE, MORE, NEWSWEEK, ORGANIC STYLE, TRAVEL AND LEISURE (FAMILY) and others. She lives in Princeton, NJ with her husband (Irish poet Paul Muldoon, poetry editor at The New Yorker and Princeton poetry professor) and two children.