- ISBN13: 9780674034945
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In real life, Mitchell Stevens is a professor in bustling New York. But for a year and a half, he worked in the admissions office of a bucolic New England college that is known for its high academic standards, beautiful campus, and social conscience. Ambitious high schoolers and savvy guidance counselors know that admission here is highly competitive. But creating classes, Stevens finds, is a lot more complicated than most people imagine. Admissions officers lo… More >>
Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites
Tags: Admissions, Class, College, Creating, Education, Elites
#1 by Stephen C. Peifer on May 10, 2010 - 7:18 pm
Creating a Class isn’t the typical how to get into a college, or just an insider view designed to help you play the system. It asks hard hard questions, and doesn’t let anyone off the hook. It made me think more than any book I read this year.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Scoob A. Diver on May 10, 2010 - 7:54 pm
Stevens does a very good job of portraying the setting of a small liberal arts instituion which works to create the best freshman class possible under competitive circumstances.
The author finds the process more complex than imagined as the admissions office is charged with bringing in a class to help improve the status of the college and to serve the needs of the development office as well as the athletic department. The book describes how elite colleges and universities have assumed a central role in producing the nation’s most privileged classes. The author found that individual evaluation protocols do not create equal educational opportunity but subtly reinforce class privilege.
Overall, I think this book is a great read for parents of students, and students as well, in high school and many parts really captured the work we do each day to prepare our children to be competitive for this next step in their lives.
Rating: 4 / 5
#3 by Thomas on May 10, 2010 - 9:07 pm
Creating a Class is an excellent read. It’s much more thoughtful than many other books on college admissions, as its intention is not only to give its reader an “insider’s view” of competitive admissions (based on Stevens’ work in the admissions office of a small college), but to call into question how the admissions process may help create and sustain class inequities. As a result, I left the book with not only a better sense of how selective institutions make their decisions, but with a set of questions (some troublesome) about the class implications of the process.
Although the book raises some important sociological questions, it’s not an overly ‘academic’ read. I found Mitchell’s prose clear, easy to read, and often eloquent without being unnecessarily flowery. In fact, Mitchell’s book is quite fun because his questions are raised through the characters (students, administrators, counselors, coaches, etc.) he encounters during his field research; this gives the book a novel-like feel. He treats those characters fairly and warmly.
Highly recommened for those who are going through the process (either as students or parents) or for those who have an interest in educational sociology.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Valerie J. Saturen on May 10, 2010 - 9:37 pm
In an economy where a college degree is virtually a prerequisite for financial security, the process of college admissions carries many implications for social equality and inequality. In this highly readable book, education and sociology professor Mitchell Stevens offers a glimpse into the world of admissions, which he immersed himself in by working in the admissions office of an unnamed elite liberal arts college.
Perhaps more than anything, the book drives home the message that higher education–particularly the elite private college–is a business, and admissions officers look for students who will boost the institution’s prestige for a minimal cost. As they pore over the files of prospective students, the officers prioritize “free” students over ones who need financial aid. They also look for students who will increase the school’s status: talented athletes, minorities, and students whose parents are deemed likely donors or whose (prestigious) high schools the college seeks to woo. In some cases, the student’s looks and popularity even come into play, since the admissions officers hope popular kids would advertise the college among their friends. Although Stevens portrays the admissions officers in a positive light–and there are times where an officer will advocate for a more “costly” student–they don’t hesitate to divide the students into two bottom-line-driven groups: “good kids” and “schlocky kids.”
It is well-known that most schools make it a priority to recruit quality student athletes (particularly football players), even those whose academics aren’t the greatest. Stevens devotes an interesting chapter to this issue, explaining how the prestige of a given college is determined in part by which rivals it meets on the football field. He also discusses the role college sports have long played in fostering the community’s identification with the school and in adding an aura of fun and masculinity to the otherwise un-masculine academic world.
In recent decades, diversity stats have also played an important role in colleges’ prestige. Although this is a positive development on the surface, the book shows how schools comply with the letter of affirmative action, but not necessarily the spirit. While the admissions officers go to great lengths to recruit minority students, the minorities they recruit come from affluent backgrounds, not from disadvantaged communities in the inner city or rural areas. As a result, the college can boost its diversity numbers, but the truly disadvantaged–poor and working class minorities, whites, and children of immigrants–remain left behind.
Stevens illustrates how higher education is not just a business, but an instrument of social reproduction–in other words, it allows elites to pass their wealth and status on to their children, while acting as a gatekeeper. Further, he shows just how many obstacles stand in the way of young people outside the elite as they navigate the college admissions system. These obstacles are social as much as they are financial. From birth, affluent children are groomed for elite college admission; their parents ferry them to after school activities and sports camps, pay for their test prep courses, and enroll them in prestigious private high schools. In turn, sports coaches and guidance counselors forge mutually beneficial relationships (in admissions lingo, they “get a thing going”) with admissions officers. Because of this combination of economic and social factors, students from elite backgrounds enter the game at an enormous advantage.
This book is valuable reading for anyone interested in higher education and social stratification, or for anyone who has simply wondered what goes on behind the imposing gates of elite college admissions.
Rating: 5 / 5