Even if "Admission" were just another run of the mill college admissions novel which, thankfully, it is not I would still recommend it to any Dartmouth student. Both the author (Jean Hanff Korelitz '83) and the novel's protagonist (Portia Nathan) are Dartmouth graduates, and quite frankly the opportunity to see "blitz" and "the soft ice cream machine in Thayer Hall" printed in a published fictional work more than compensates for any of the novel's flaws.
Granted, the fact that Portia has betrayed the Big Green in order to work as an admissions officer at Princeton University, where most of the novel is set, somewhat detracts from the Dartmouth draw. Spectacular references to all things Dartmouth, however, still abound throughout the book. Midway through the novel (I'll be specific, as the book is long on page 186), Portia even finds herself back in Hanover, walking across the Green and plodding down Main Street. Her description of "a classic Hanover day" is accurate and jarring in an awesome "wow I was just there this morning and she's totally spot on" kind of way.
Yet "Admission" has a narrative draw apart from its Dartmouth connections. As Korelitz explains in a question and answer section in the recently released paperback edition, "Admission' is the first novel [about the college admission process] to resist satirizing this material." And despite the potential melodrama associated with taking the college admissions process seriously, the novel rarely comes off as trite.
The earnestness Portia brings to her task as an admissions officer is endearing and especially heartening for those of us who have been through the process. Korelitz worked as an outside reader for the Princeton University admissions office as preparation for writing "Admission," according to her website, giving credence to her depiction of the elusive behind-the-scenes world of college admissions and the good intentions of admissions officers.
Portia truly cares about every file she reads, empathizing with everyone from the clear admit to the rejected student: "it pained her to pass on these students who had clearly done, and done well, the precise things they'd been told to, who had become the very seventeen-year-olds they'd been encouraged to become."
On her website, Korelitz writes that she reached a major breakthrough on the novel when a Middlebury College admissions officer responded to her question about the salient personality traits of admissions workers by saying, "We're all such do-gooders." After reading "Admission," it is clear that Korelitz took this maxim to heart, as being a "do-gooder" is an extremely apt characterization of Portia.
In fact, Portia cares so much about her work that, when she needs to escape from her own soap-opera-esque troubles, she turns to reading files on a case-by-case basis and displaying a keen insight into the adolescent hopes and fears of various Princeton applicants perhaps because of the insecurities she herself experienced as a college student.
The melodrama of Portia's personal life sometimes spills over into the prose, which, though eloquent, is occasionally overwrought (describing the groups of Dartmouth girls Portia wanted to befriend, for example, as "mysteriously intertwined, like a grove of slender, rustling aspen trees with a single root system underground").
A good deal of the narrative explores Portia's baggage from her years at Dartmouth which includes a dark "secret" that is actually quite easy to guess after reading about half of the novel. In fact, readers can easily guess how many plot elements will pan out especially where Portia's 16-year relationship with a Princeton English professor is heading, and why. Considering the length of "Admission" (a whopping 449 pages, with possibly the smallest margins you'll ever encounter), its predictability is somewhat frustrating. But despite these drawbacks, the novel rarely drags.
This is likely thanks to Portia's dynamic, engaging character, who has ample wisdom to share, and the cast of equally dynamic and endearing supporting characters from Portia's commune-hopping, secretly wealthy "failed lesbian" of a mother to the brilliant but socially awkward boy from rural Vermont whom she convinces to apply to Princeton. Thus, with lovable characters, vivid writing and Dartmouth references to boot, "Admissions" is a book I'd recommend to anyone and everyone who recognizes and understands emotionally Korelitz's reference to Daniel Webster's famous words: "It is, sir, as I have said, a small school. And yet there are those who love it."
