Jacques Steinberg has been a staff reporter for the New York Times for more than ten years and currently is a national
education correspondent. In 1998 he was awarded the grand prize of the Education Writers Association for his nine-part
series on a third-grade classroom on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Review
"Excellent... thoroughly engrossing drama."
--BusinessWeek
Publisher's Web Site, January, 2004
Summary
In the fall of 1999, New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg was given an unprecedented opportunity
to observe the admissions process at prestigious Wesleyan University. Over the course of nearly a year, Steinberg
accompanied admissions officer Ralph Figueroa on a tour to assess and recruit the most promising students in the
country. The Gatekeepers follows a diverse group of prospective students as they compete for places in the nation's
most elite colleges. The first book to reveal the college admission process in such behind-the-scenes detail, The
Gatekeepers will be required reading for every parent of a high school-age child and for every student facing the
arduous and anxious task of applying to college.
Table of Contents
1. The Tortilla Test
2. Don't Send Me Poems
3. Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
4. Considered Without Prejudice
5. Read Faster, Say No
6. Thundercats and X-Men
7. Nothing to Do with the Dope
8. Things Seem to Have Gone Well
9. 420-ed
10. Unnamed Gorgeous Small Liberal Arts School
Epilogue
