Please, Let Me In!

By Andrea Sachs

What makes a college admissions officer say yes to one applicant and no to the next? To answer that question, New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg spent a year observing the selection process at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. The result is his new book, The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College (Viking). Steinberg talks with TIME about the dos and don'ts of getting kids into the school of their choice.

WHAT WAS THE MOST SURPRISING FACT YOU LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE WORKED? How human the process was. I'm sure I got taken in by a lot of these How-to-Get-In books that suggest there's a formula that these schools use. There's no question that they use numbers, lots of numbers, as guidelines. But there's also the fact that admissions officers so often went with their gut, got excited when they saw a kid who looked not unlike them as a high school senior.

WHAT'S THE PROPER DIVISION OF EFFORT BY STUDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS? In an ideal world, it's the student who is going to this college. What better time to start asserting yourself than in the admissions process? I would hope that [the students] would be the captains of these teams and that the parents and the guidance counselor would play a supporting role. But you and I know it often doesn't work that way, that some parents just can't help themselves. And there are some kids who just simply aren't equipped to lead a search like this. Maybe that's a sign that some of these schools aren't a good fit, because it does require a certain amount of initiative.

WHAT'S THE SILLIEST APPLICATION STUNT YOU'VE EVER HEARD OF? Someone sent a life-size doll to Wesleyan. Students really need to keep in mind that in almost every instance the bottom-line question is, Can this student do the work at this institution?

CAN ADMISSIONS OFFICERS TELL WHEN KIDS ARE JUST TRYING TO PAD THEIR RESUMES WITH EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES? Sure. They know how many hours a kid has in a day. And it was so obvious from some of these resumes that there was no possible way that the person could have done all the things they said they were doing, at least not do them well.

HOW EARLY SHOULD A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT START WORRYING ABOUT THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS? Highly selective [colleges] really value kids who have taken the most challenging courses at their school, have really maxed out, not just on APs but on those courses that are toughest. That's often the very first thing they look at. Obviously you don't want to take the toughest math course as a high school freshman, but the hope is to really put yourself on the road early.

WHAT'S THE CURRENT THINKING ABOUT SAT-PREP COURSES LIKE KAPLAN? These courses have probably never been more popular. Some applicants get terrific results; some don't see any increase at all. The colleges are aware that this is one of those things that separate rich applicants from poor applicants, and they try as best they can to make sure that applicants who are poor are not held to the same standard as kids who can take these courses and sometimes improve their lot.

WHAT WAS YOUR OWN APPLICATION PROCESS LIKE? I had gone to summer camp in New Hampshire, near Dartmouth. Since the age of 13, I knew I wanted to apply there. I applied early decision to Dartmouth, and I recall getting myself and my family pretty worked up.