Admission offered an interesting look at the admissions process to an Ivy League university like Princeton, where the story is set. Portia Nathan is an admissions officer who buries herself in the personalities, frustrations and dreams of the seventeen-year old applicants whose files she peruses for the better part of each year. There is a secret Portia is drowning under, which is alluded to throughout the book, but since it doesn't get unveiled 'til the end of the book, I won't go further into that. However, this secret greatly impacts Portia's long-term relationship, friendships, and creates a kind of personal inertia that she seems incapable of escaping... until she meets one special applicant and his exceptional (read: potential romantic interest) teacher, John Halsey.
I liked this book, although it's not one of my personal favorites, because it was informative and Korelitz is a strong writer. However, by the end, I was a little bored by the factual tidbits re: admissions and the personal rants Korelitz made about how misunderstood the admissions process and the officers are. It's clear this is a topic dear to her heart-- Korelitz is married to a Princeton professor and was, for several years, a part-time reader of admissions packets, so she knows what she's talking about-- but it seems like she was so eager to get in as much information on the admissions process as she could-- and sometimes at the detriment of the story.
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