Your college admissions reading list

Love college admissions? Want to learn more? Here are a few places to go:

Blogs

There are three excellent blogs shared by college admissions offices. If you are looking for an honest, reflective sense of what happens “inside the room” or just want to understand more about admissions work, these are three excellent, intelligent perspectives to consider. All three have robust search features.

• Georgia Tech Admissions (some favorite posts: “Give Your Full 75%!”, “The Waitlist. Why?”)

• MIT Admissions (this one is fun because it is a mix of students, alums, and people from the admissions office who write)
• UVA Admissions -- Dean J writes excellent, refreshing perspectives on the process 

Twitter

There are a lot of people who tweet regularly about college admissions. Some great folks to follow would include:

• Eric Hoover (@erichoov) -- writes for the Chronicle of Higher Education
• Rick Clark (@clark2college) -- author of the GA Tech blog
• Jon Boeckenstedt (@JonBoeckenstedt) -- VP of Enrollment at Oregon State
• Ethan Sawyer (@CollegeEssayGuy) -- independent consultant and essay guide
• Jeannine Lalonde (@UVaDeanJ) -- author of the UVA blog
• Jeff Selingo (@jselingo) -- author of “Who Gets in and Why”

Books

• Who Gets In and Why (Jeff Selingo) -- a journalist spent a year inside a college admissions office
• The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students (Tony Jack) -- a sociological perspective on the ways colleges both support and leave behind students who are financially struggling
• The Inequality Machine: How College Divides Us (Paul Tough) -- the injustices of the college system as they become a tool for social immobility (instead of mobility as was the design)
• Excellent Sheep (William Deresiewicz) -- how college has become a tool for conformity and not one for creativity
• Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be (Frank Bruni) -- refreshing perspective on the ways to think about education beyond brand

Other Writing

There are sometimes great editorials in the New York Times about college. Here are a few:

• How to Get the Most out of College
• Stop Asking About My Kid’s College Plans
• How to Level the College Playing Field
• How I Learned to Take the SAT Like a Rich Kid
• Check This Box if You are a Good Person
• How to Survive the College Admissions Madness

Grown and Flown blog -- 6 Ways a College Counselor Counsels Her Own Son about Admissions

[Tony Jack’s book covers, among other topics, food insecurity in college. If you want to learn more try this NYT piece.]