This is a list of books I’ve found interesting, helpful, and/or illuminating around the topics of college admission, adolescence, adolescents, American culture (especially consumerism and class), and other related issues. You’ll find something interesting in any one of them. I haven’t included many of the standard college admission books or guides; they are useful or not depending on your needs and are generally available. These books deal with larger issues or related ideas and phenomena surrounding and influencing the American college admission complex.
If you have any additions to suggest, please let me know.
A History of American Higher Education by John R. Thelin
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind. Suskind follows a poor African American student through high school and the college process. At times a bit too condescending and not always as clear as Suskind probably intended, but a worthy read.
Admission (a novel) by Jean Korelitz. An amusing and intriguing book about a Princeton admission officer and her intertwining personal and professional troubles.
Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic
African Americans and College Choice
After Admission: From College Access to College Success by James E. Rosenbaum, Regina Deil-Amen & Ann E. Person. Focuses primarily on community college issues but has many good insights about achieving success in college.
Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture by Juliet B. Schor
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers
Campus Life by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz. A wonderful and sometimes eye-opening survey of college life over the years. Amazingly, it seems that students and college faculty and administrators have been in conflict since the early days of the university.
Choosing Elites by Robert Klitgaard
Class by Paul Fussell. A send-up of our obsessions with class, including a funny chapter on colleges. Biting and very revealing. You’ll keep assessing your own behavior as you read.
College Access & Opportunity Guide. A college guide geared specifically toward first generation and lower income students and families. Terrific guidance for those looking for schools that have strong programs for those students.
College Admissions and the Public Interest by B. Alden Thresher. The best book ever written or likely to be written on what college admission is, or should be, all about. Currently out of print, unfortunately. If you can get your hands on a copy, consider yourself lucky. Should be required reading for every admission person and college counselor.
College Admissions Together: It Takes a Family by Steven Roy Goodman and Andrea Leiman. Very sane and solid guide to getting through the process in one piece as a family.
College Gold: The Step by Step Guide for Paying for College
College Knowledge: What It Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready
College Unranked: Ending the College Admissions Frenzy, edited by Lloyd Thacker. A publication of the Education Conservancy, with essays by admission deans and others about resisting the competitive and commercialized world of college admission. There’s a certain quixotic atmosphere here but it’s worth taking a few moments to step out of the craziness to read these selections.
Colleges that Change Lives by Loren Pope. A book about terrific but often overlooked colleges. Consider the fact that you haven’t heard of many of them a plus in all kinds of ways.
Consumed
Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch. One of the great writers about American education does a 180.
Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching Off My Parents by Zac Bissonnette. A cheeky, no-holds-barred look at financing a college education, with more than a little emphasis on state institutions and community colleges. The author is currently an undergraduate at the U of Massachusetts–Amherst. If nothing else, it will change how you think about borrowing for college.
First in the Family. A pair of guides for students as they approach high school and college preparation. Solid and not condescending.
Fiske Guide to Colleges
Harvard, Schmarvard by Jay Mathews. Yes, please. Slap yourself out of Ivy obsession by reading this book in conjunction with Colleges That Change Lives.
Higher Learning, Greater Good: The Private & Social Benefits of Higher Education
Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood by Steven Mintz. A wonderful and thought-provoking book about the place of children in American life.
I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. A not very thinly disguised sendup of college life at a place remarkably like Duke University. And not his best work, either, but still worth reading if you haven’t been on a college campus in a while.
Increasing Access to College
Late to Class: Social Class and Schooling in the New Economy Jane A. Van Galen & George W. Noblit, eds.
Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admission and Beyond
Leveling the Playing Field: Justice, Politics, and College Admissions
Life, the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered America by Neal Gabler
Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano. An affecting memoir of what it’s like to feel out of place. Echoes of Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, also worth a read for its portrayal of outsider/insiderness and the desire to better your condition.
Panicked Parents’ Guide to College Admissions
Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times by Margaret K. Nelson. Why do those parents keep circling?
Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class by Ross Douthat. Less revelatory than it might sound, but an interesting inside look at a Harvard undergrad’s experience (his own). He now writes for the New York Times.
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes by Alfie Kohn. I love books that challenge widespread assumptions and this one does that in spades. He’s written many in a similar vein and all will shake up your thinking.
Race and Class Matters at an Elite College by Prof. Elizabeth Aries. Prof. Aries studied these topics by surveying and talking with the students at Amherst College. Although many observations seem obvious, there are some surprises and it’s interesting to have this up-close-and-personal study of one of America’s most esteemed colleges.
Rescuing Your Teenager From Depression
Rewarding Strivers: Helping Low-Income Students Succeed in College, Richard D. Kahlenberg, ed.
Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education by David Kirp. A clear-eyed look at how commerce and college intersect more and more in today’s world.
Sophomore Guide to College & Career: Preparing for life After High School
Standardized Minds: The High Price of America’s Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It by Peter Sacks. How much more do we need to say? This book sums things up pretty well.
Status Anxiety
Taking Time Off by Ron Lieber. Ron wrote this book with a friend not that long after graduating from Amherst College. It’s a refreshing approach to the idea that taking a year or so off between academic challenges might be OK. He now writes a financial advice column for the New York Times.
Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education by Peter Sacks. A look at how underserved kids get underserved, and some positive approaches to the issue.
Teenagers: An American History, by Grace Palladino
The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy by Nicholas Lemann. A definitive history of the SAT. Like seeing how sausage is made. Excellent.
The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive & Reconnect with Their Fathers
The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools
The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton by Jerome Karabel. Huge but fascinating and at times chilling account of college admission pre-marketing era. One of the best books ever written about the college admission processa and its connection to American culture and its class system.
The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch. Should be required reading for everyone. Came out in the ’70s and is even more relevant now as an analysis of how we have changed as a culture from being outwardly conscious to being almost exclusively inwardly-oriented.
The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College by Jacques Steinberg. The NY Times reporter follows the admission process at a liberal arts college from A to Z, focusing on one admission officer’s experience. Not a primer for how to get in anywhere, but a sympathetic look at the pressures exerted on the individuals who make the decisions.
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in American Life by Daniel Boorstin. Written in the late 50s, it could have been written yesterday.
The Little College Handbook: A First Generation’s Guide to Getting in and Staying In
The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College
The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfull a Dream
The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life
The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges–and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates by Daniel Golden
The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids by Madeline Levine
The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager by Thomas Hine. Readable and fascinating account of the creature known as a “teenager.” Surprisingly, the term is relatively recent and more about marketing than anything else. But you probably knew that.
The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins
The Unintended Consequences of High Stakes Testing by M. Gail Jones, Brett D. Jones, and Tracy Hargrove
Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education
What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens
The Thinking Student’s Guide to College: 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education by Andrew Roberts. An excellent, insightful, and urbane look at choosing a college and getting the most out of it once you’re there. Should be required reading, but won’t be.
If you had to initially set up a college career center with a moderate budget, what would be some of the top reference books you would obtain. Thanks, I really like what you write. Jean
Hi Jean–Glad you like my blog. It’s fun! I think I’d get the Fiske Guide, Colleges That Change Lives, the Book of Majors (available through the College Board), and one of the large books like Peterson’s Guide. Fiske focuses on the more “elite” colleges (although it lists quite a few) but the writing is good and it offers clear observations with not too much coloring. Although books like these are published yearly, you can get older copies (a year or two) inexpensively and it really is fine. (Check with the publishers, who are often only too glad to get rid of last year’s editions for a few bucks.) There are also publications (as well as online info) you can get from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) about current and future career prospects. They have data about which careers are growing, what the average pay is, and so on. There’s a lot of good information for students as well at http://www.bls.gov/k12/index.htm.
If you check the list of books I have on my blog you’ll see a number of others as well. What you choose will also depend on your student population. If you have a lot of first-generation kids, the First in the Family books are good and there are a number of others.
Good luck!
Will- I was delighted to see you quoted in The Chronicle today.
I’d love to catch up. Is there an email address I can write. It’s been a while since Pottstown………. cheers, Jennie
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