This is an excellent ethnographic study of what the college admissions process is like using Wesleyan University as the focal point. The author does a wonderful job of pivoting the story around one admissions person, but he also follows about a dozen students from their junior high school years until a few years into college. It's quite revealing to see how elite universities recruit students as well as how decisions are made amongst the admissions staff. This book is especially enlightening right now (the class profiled in the book was the class of 2004) in light of the current Harvard lawsuit about Asian American enrolment and affirmative action.