Search -
The Chosen : The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton
The Chosen The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard Yale and Princeton Author:Jerome Karabel The competition for a spot in the Ivy League—long considered the ticket to success—is fierce and getting fiercer. But ever since the 1920s, when bitter anti-Semitism caused elite universities to limit the number of Jews, admissions policies have been both tightly controlled and shrouded in secrecy. In The Chosen, Jerome Karabel lifts... more » the veil on a century of admission and exclusion. How did the policies of our elite schools evolve? Whom have they let in and why? And what do those policies say about America?
Many of Karabel"s findings are astonishing: the admission of blacks into the Ivy League wasn"t an idealistic response to the civil rights movement but a fearful reaction to inner-city riots; Yale and Princeton decided to admit women only after realizing that they were losing men to colleges (such as Harvard and Stanford) that had begun accepting them; for many years, Harvard systematically limited the number of "intellectuals" on campus; and discrimination against Asian Americans in the 1980s mirrored the treatment of Jews earlier in the century.
Drawing on decades of research, Karabel shines a light on the ever-changing definition of "merit" in college admissions, showing how it shaped—and was shaped by—the country at large. Full of colorful characters, from Woodrow Wilson to Kingman Brewster, The Chosen is a magisterial work that offers a new and deeply original perspective on American history.« less