Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Every year thousands of people around the world apply for entrance to universities of their choice. I'm lucky in that I live in a country with fairly open admission. Going off my school marks I wouldn't have got into a very good university in the USA, yet I have done much better at university than I ever did at school.

This book is a fictional one about a woman called Portia who is an admissions officer for Princeton. That means that for a whole region she makes the decisions about who will enter the hallowed halls of one of the United States' 'Ivy League' universities. Princeton looks for not just the best but people who are the best and have that little something extra. Portia's job is to make initial decisions about students before they go to a board who decides each student's future once and for all. Throughout the book, Portia reads applications, students' essays and recommendations from their teachers and counsellors. Having worked as an outside reader for university applications before, Korelitz shows what the world of a gatekeeper to a sought after university is like.

Through her job, Portia visits a small school that has never been visited by Princeton before. Here she meets a boy she considers to be extremely talented and as the book continues we learn that there is something extremely personal in Portia's connection to this boy. Throughout her 16-year long relationship also hits complications and without many friends or family connections she hits her work in a way she never has to before in order to hide from the truth.

This book has an absolutely amazing storyline and is also an interesting look into the process of North American university applications and how spur of the moment each decision which potentially could change a student's life can be. Despite this, there are in my view several problems which prevent this book from reaching its full potential. Portia's character is not very well developed and the things that cause her very own "admission" to take place are unbelievable. Furthermore, the book reaches a conclusion that the reader has been expecting throughout the book and the last few chapters in this way feel a bit pointless.

Despite its flaws, this book is an impressive one and I woul be interested to read more of Korelitz's work in the future.