Secrets of the Temple: Christopher Pearson Reviews 'A is for Admission'

By Christopher Pearson | Sunday, November 2, 1997

Michele A. Hernandez worked as an assistant director of admissions at Dartmouth for the past four years. A graduate of Dartmouth and later Columbia, she left the admission field last year to teach Spanish at Middlebury. Hernandez has recently released a book based on her tenure in McNutt entitled A is for Admission: The Insider's Guide to Getting Into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges and that purportedly divulges previously unknown intimate details about the Ivy League admissions process.

Though A is for Admission is no match for Kitty Kelley's The Royals, Hernandez and her publisher Time Warner have, nevertheless, attempted to cultivate a tell-all atmosphere around the book. The jacket, for example, promises that Hernandez reveals 'one of America's most closely guarded secrets.

Now, for the first time, an Ivy League admissions officer breaks the code of silence to take you behind the closed doors of one of the most rigorous and competitive decisions procedures in the world.' There is even the requisite denunciation from the book's subject, the Dartmouth admissions office. Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg has condemned A is for Admission as 'glib' and 'superficial.'

Fortunately, Hernandez's prose in the actual text is more muted than promotional hyperbole would suggest but she is certainly aware of the rhetoric that sells books: 'I'll take you inside the daily routine of an Ivy League admissions committee as it sorts through thousands of competitive applications'

Hernandez is not wrong to see a substantial market for the kind of information she is attempting to provide. Her audience, like that of all books of this type, (such as Scaling the Ivy Wall) is not, of course, the valedictorians with perfect SAT's or national athletic records who run hospices for Ecuadorian refugees out of their garage. Applicant titans of this breed only concern themselves with where they wish to attend college not with how to ingratiate themselves to the schools of their choice.

Readily cognizant of this reality, A is for Admission wisely chooses an alternate target: Ivy League applicants of high ambition and even higher socio-economic status whose possession of less extraordinary resumes leaves their admission to an elite college such as Dartmouth in doubt. This demographic is always looking for a leg up on their squash buddies and should feel little strain in parting with the book's $24.00 cover price to get it.

That A is for Admission is primarily aimed at the offspring of the well-heeled is apparent just from the very nature of Hernandez's advice. For instance, she counsels that a student whose parents are especially wealthy and prominent should refrain from providing too much detail about their parent's occupation to the admissions office. The progeny of a Chase Manhattan higher-up should, for example, simply list their parent as a 'banker' on the application. Admissions officers expect less, in Hernandez's experience, of the children of bankers than of the children of executives of large economic institutions. In a book that focuses on this kind of tip, it comes as no surprise that consideration of financial aid is relegated to a few pages in the back.

Hernandez even makes pains to differentiate herself from the stereotypical admissions staffer. She, too, she insists, is a member of the educated elite. For in Hernandez's view, there are two types of Ivy League admissions officer. One is the long-time worker in admissions she refers to as the 'old guard' or 'lifers'. In general, these 'lifers' are, she asserts, fairly dim-witted and obtuse individuals. They did not attend prestigious universities but, rather, tend to be graduates of lesser institutions who essentially have nothing better to do than work in admissions.

In order to avoid the appearance of mere wanton snobbery, Hernandez manages to factor this unflattering characterization of some of her colleagues into her advice to students. As the 'old guard' are neither 'scholars' nor 'intellectuals', she counsels that concepts in the application must not be too subtle. 'Hit your main point hard', stresses Hernandez, presumably, to make sure these nematodes reading your essays get the idea.

In contrast to the middling old codgers comprising the 'lifers' are the young vibrant admissions officers, recent graduates of top colleges, who will spend only a few years in admissions before moving on to bigger and better things. In other words, this group is composed of those bearing a great deal of similarity to Ms. Hernandez. Being so damn talented themselves, they are 'extremely qualified to judge candidates in terms of their intellectual potential'. On the other hand, the pedestrian minds of 'lifers,' she claims, have great difficulty recognizing brilliance.

In the context of her topic, however, Hernandez's elitism is probably an absolvable sin. And those who are able to overlook her parvenu tone are rewarded with some interesting information about Dartmouth admissions.

Though the truthfulness of her assertions is admittedly unverifiable, they are remarkable for their pointed deviation from common perception. She disputes, for example, that the oft-repeated claim that Ivy League admissions officers are in constant communication with each other as they barter over students. Dartmouth doesn't call Brown, say, and offer to reject the piano prodigy from Dracut if allowed exclusive acceptance on the cornerback from Santa Fe who runs a 4.2 40. Admissions offices are simply too busy to exchange applicants, she claims, even if they wanted to.

Hernandez also contests the notion that being from a more obscure state such as South Dakota helps one's chances of getting into an elite school. Acceptance rates at Dartmouth, she maintains, are similar for all geographic regions. Contrary to a widely-held belief, applicants from Rapid City, then, must be as capable as those from Bethesda.

Equally intriguing is Hernandez's portrayal of Dartmouth's director of admissions, Karl Furstenberg. She never mentions him specifically by name, preferring to refer to him as 'the head of admissions at Dartmouth' but she frequently cites her experiences working under him. She believes, for example, he is more willing to excuse the student with low grades but high test scores as 'bored' or 'unchallenged' while no such allowances are made for students who perform well in class but who have deficient testing. If true, this would run counter to Dartmouth's, in fact to nearly all selective schools', stated intent to rely less on the College Board in favor of the high school transcript.

Hernandez, otherwise, seldom criticizes her former boss and adamantly endorses his integrity, contravening reports she wrote A is for Admission in revenge because her husband Jorge was denied tenure at Dartmouth a year ago.

Furstenberg, she avers, refuses to accept individuals to Dartmouth for whom the work is too challenging but whom outside forces want admitted. This would even include development cases, that is, those students whose parents pledge a major contribution provided that their child is admitted.

Less than one percent of a class at Dartmouth, Hernandez calculates, is granted acceptance this way. No halls are greased, either, for jocks who cannot perform in class. Every athlete at Dartmouth is well over the minimum academic level jointly set by the eight Ivy League heads of admission to be eligible for acceptance.

Hernandez is skeptical, however, of the probity of other top-flight schools in this regard. She alleges that 'not all the Ivies are as discriminating as Dartmouth is with its athletic recruits'. Coaches at Dartmouth, she observes, frequently complain that Harvard or Yale has snatched up prospects deemed academically unqualified to play for the Indians — an item for consideration in anticipation of Dartmouth's Homecoming run-in with the Crimson on Saturday. As interesting as all this may be to someone already affiliated with Dartmouth, A is for Admission is intended, rather, for the pink-jowled high school students who are clamoring for admittance to Dartmouth. For prospectives desperate for clues on how to get in, the book has a very modest utility. Hernandez does indeed explain how an application folder is evaluated and she does explore in depth the Academic Index, a formula used in the Ivy League to calculate a student's scholastic viability.

The book jacket is probably correct that this systematic review of the inner workings of the admissions office is unique in its extent of detail. Hernandez's message to Dartmouth-hopeful students and parents however, is anything but revolutionary. To be a successful applicant to Dartmouth, she says, you need to be really smart with the grades and test scores to prove it. Sadly, no $24.00 book can help you there.

Secrets of the Temple: Christopher Pearson Reviews 'A is for Admission'

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