Bwrk?

editrix
Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:02:03 +0000

Most people would only know the “code” if they had read the particular admissions book which discussed it (at some length).

The book is Admissions Confidential, by Rachel Toor, who was a young and somewhat disaffected admissions officer at Duke for 3 or 4 years.

Toor’s book gets annoying–an awful lot of it seems devoted to demonstrating how cool and creative she herself is–but I also feel it includes some useful (if somewhat discouraging) insights into the admissions process. Still, it’s nowhere near as enlightening as The Gatekeepers, by Jacques Steinberg; or–believe it or not–On Writing the College Application Essay, by Harry Bauld, who worked in admissions at Brown and Columbia and offers some side-splitting but illuminating glimpses into the minds of weary admissions officers slogging through dozens of boring, conventional essays.

Personally, I believe there are plenty of BWRK’s who get into top schools, but it helps to make an application stand out if the kid can find a way (through essays, EC’s, etc.–though not through some cutesy gimmick) to express his individuality.