The book follows the lives of Ralph and the eight other admissions officers at Wesleyan, from meeting students at college fairs to the committee discussions regarding the applicant, to the final decision on their fate. There are over 7,000 applications for roughly 1,800 entering students. Steinberg demonstrates how the admissions committee personalizes the admissions process, so that all applications are reviewed carefully. The admissions committee is organized such that two officers are required to review each application by recording the general academic and personal characteristics of the applicant as well as their recommendation for denial or acceptance. The application comments are then reviewed by director of admissions who chooses to deny admission, to accept the student into the entering class, or to bring it to committee discussion and have the whole committee review the applicant together. Each of the admissions officers has his/her favorite applicants and qualities that they endorse.

Of the 1,800 applicants, Steinberg deliberately focuses on the lives of six students: Jordan, a Caucasian student; Mig, a Native American student; Aggie, a Dominican student; Tiffany, an Asian American student; Julianna, a multiracial student; and Becca, a Caucasian student. Through the evaluation of these applicants, we see how the committee weighs different factors of the applicant’s characteristics. Affirmative action plays an important role in the admission process as one can see that a student’s ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds are taken into account. Steinberg not only carefully explains each candidate’s application and how the admissions committee views the particular candidate, but he also interviews each candidate to find out why he/she applied to Wesleyan, what they did not include in the application that would have influenced the outcome, and where the student matriculated and their place in the community of the university in which they enrolled. Steinberg wonderfully explains the whole admissions process and outcome of these six students, some of which were rejected to Wesleyan, accepted but chose to matriculate elsewhere, and accepted and matriculated at Wesleyan.

The Gatekeepers is a suspenseful and relatively easy piece to read. The stories within the book were intertwined in such a way that made it flow. I found the book quite entertaining as it delved into the personal lives of the admissions officers to show why they chose a career in admissions and also what characteristics of the applicants they were sensitive to. For example, Ralph came from a background in which he saw that Mexican American students were not afforded as much educational opportunities as students from other ethnic backgrounds, especially ones from public high schools. Ralph used his power as an admissions officer to make a case for students like Aggie Ramirez, who was Hispanic and came from a low socioeconomic background. He highlighted her characteristics as being a clear-cut leader, having a great personality, being a first-generation student, and coming from an underrepresented background to counterbalance her low SAT score and mediocre grades. Ralph presented the argument that Aggie came from an impoverished neighborhood in New York City and was able to overcome obstacles to get to where she was. While Ralph was sensitive to Aggie’s issues, he was not as forthcoming with defending Tiffany Wang’s application. Tiffany was a National Merit Scholar, but her grades were not representative of her potential. Ralph penalized her for this in his assessment of her application. Rod, an Asian American, felt that the admissions committee did not cut Asian American applicants enough slack. Therefore, he recognized that while Tiffany’s grades were not the best, she did take many Advanced Placement classes and demonstrated leadership in holding office in a couple of extracurricular activities.

Steinberg provides a behind-the-scenes look into the admissions process. The student’s SAT score, grade point average, class ranking, courseload, what high school he/she attended, personal statement, extracurricular activities, leadership positions, teacher recommendations, and personal experiences all play a role in the admissions decision. Steinberg reveals that the admissions committee does not have a defined, objective method of assessing all applications. Therefore, each student’s application is reviewed on a personal basis and all of their characteristics can be examined as criteria. In some years, tuba players may be given a preference in the entering class, because the school band is lacking tuba players. In other years, students who would like to major in science are favored over overrepresented majors and departments within the school. If a student was a minority or overcame harsh circumstances, the admissions committee was generally more sympathetic of his/her lower SAT scores or lower grade point average (within boundaries). I was surprised that the teacher recommendations did not have a major effect on the admissions counselors; they merely confirmed the officers’ thoughts regarding the student from the other supporting documents of the application. I was also struck that no two applicants were alike. From the six students that were chosen to be featured in the book, all of them were given a fair and personalized review by the admissions committee.

I was extremely involved in the book as it showed how the admissions committee worked. I could not believe that there were only nine admissions officers to review the overwhelming number of applications. They seemed to be overworked and understaffed, a deadly combination, especially in assessing students’ applications. Ralph had to tell himself to "read faster and to say no." It was reassuring to see that all of the officers took their jobs seriously. However, it was frightening to think that these nine admissions officers held the fate of the applicants’ outcomes; if one of the officers was having a bad day, he/she might not give an applicant as much thought and be less receptive or sensitive to the student’s characteristics. For example, Ralph included Devin’s mother’s letter in his considerations regarding Jordan. He could easily have chosen to ignore this supplemental information. The admissions officers seemed to be most interested in students that most closely resembled themselves, and were willing to defend these students’ applications during committee discussions. If one was not represented by the nine officers, then it would be quite difficult to gain admission if none of the officers were sympathetic to one’s qualities. It was also disturbing for me to know that students who attended private schools such as Harvard-Westlake had guidance counselors that were able to talk to admissions officers at various colleges to get one’s application greater consideration, as is the case with Becca Jannol. Becca was supposed to be rejected from Wesleyan, but her guidance counselor, Sharon had ties with Ralph. Therefore, Becca was ultimately waitlisted and then accepted to the university. Many students coming from public schools would not have the same luxury and are therefore greatly disadvantaged in this aspect.

A central idea that Steinberg highlights throughout the book is affirmative action. Admissions officers seem to refer to the section in which the students fill out their ethnic backgrounds before reviewing the other parts of the application. The admissions committee has a system of using acronyms to describe students that are desirable to the Wesleyan class makeup. One of these acronyms is "NCP", which stands for non-college parents. Ralph also wrote "clear priority" on work cards for students from underrepresented ethnic groups. In the case of Mig, a Native American applicant with below-average (for Wesleyan) SAT scores and C’s and D’s on his report card, the admissions officers chose to admit him, because he had overcome hardships. He did not have a good relationship with his father and many of the people in his community were lost to alcoholism. Mig showed initiative by attending the Native American Preparatory School and succeeding in getting better grades in school. While all of the applicants have work cards that describe them with scores and numbers, the intangible information regarding their backgrounds is pertinent in deciding their outcome in the application process.

Steinberg tends to emphasize the greatness of Wesleyan throughout The Gatekeepers. The institution is a competitive one and for students to be accepted to it, they need to show that they are extraordinary. Steinberg makes sure to tell the reader several times that there are not enough seats for all the students who apply to the university. Over 7,000 applications were received for only 1,800 spots. Because Wesleyan had so many applications, the admissions committee could only accept a mere fraction of the applicants. Steinberg also stressed how great the school was through the mean SAT score and the criteria assessed by the US News & World Report. I felt as though The Gatekeepers is at times, a marketing piece for Wesleyan University. The author uses too much space to focus on the institution’s greatness where he could have used it to include another applicant’s profile. Steinberg likens the Ivy League universities and Stanford with Wesleyan. He also compares Williams and Amherst with Wesleyan. In some instances this is helpful to the reader, because it shows how other schools’ admissions committees have different procedures. For example, Williams accepts more student athletes. For the most part, these comparisons did well to improve my understanding of the admissions process. The exceptions came in describing how Wesleyan used these comparisons to make itself compete with the more selective schools. It seemed like Wesleyan wanted to emulate the greatness of its higher-ranked competitors.

While Steinberg shows that Wesleyan proclaimed its individuality by stating how it was different from its competitors by not having certain requirements or being a liberal campus, Wesleyan also seemed caught up in being involved in the US News & World Report rankings. All of the applicants are described first by their SAT score or grade point average. In one part of The Gatekeepers, the former Director of Admissions decided to accept more students in the early admissions part of the application process, so that it would have less spots to accept students in the regular admissions round. This way, the numbers would show that Wesleyan accepted less students with a large percentage of which decided to matriculate to the university, thereby increasing its ranking on the US News & World Report. Wesleyan also looked at students’ SAT scores more closely in the early admissions round, so that they could improve their rankings. It was also so they could admit a more diverse group of students if they accepted a few students who had lower than average SAT scores from the general admissions round.

The choice of which students Steinberg chose to survey appears to be extremely strategic. Of the six applicants, four of them were students of color. I would have picked more students that represented the majority makeup of applicants or ones that represented the university student body. It seemed deliberate that Mig was included in the book as he was only one of two Native American students who applied to Wesleyan. Mig’s inclusion might have been because it illustrates how hard Ralph worked to get a Native American student to apply to the school. Mig’s story also demonstrates how affirmative action worked, especially since Mig was admitted to Wesleyan with low grades. In Julianna’s case, no affirmative action came into play. Julianna exemplified all the characteristics that Wesleyan was looking for in a student no matter what color she was. The admissions officers chose to reject Aggie, because her SAT scores and grade point average were low, so affirmative action did not work in her case. From the book, there was an implication that Tiffany and Becca’s application status were both hurt by affirmative action as they both came from well-off backgrounds and their parents possessed college degrees. However, their applications were not as strong as Julianna’s or else they would have gotten accepted. I get the impression that Steinberg wished to include these specific students to create a atmosphere of sensationalism and controversy over the topic of affirmative action. After all, The Gatekeepers was a New York Times bestseller.

After reading this book, the general public might perceive that most of the students of color receive some sort of preference over white students, which is not always the case. I was taken aback when one of my colleagues, a Harvard graduate, stated that her kids will never get into a good school because she and her husband are both white. Her husband is also a Harvard graduate. During a discussion with my colleagues about the book, I pointed out that affirmative action actually helps Whites, because it does not work for Asians in the admissions process. I also mentioned that only a small percentage of college students are actually students of color. According to the US Census in 2002, 80.7% of college students in the United States were White. 87.5% of Massachusetts students were white in 2002. While The Gatekeepers is an entertaining read and details a few instances in which affirmative action was employed, I certainly would not use the examples set in this book as reference material for affirmative action, especially since it was not employed in a majority of the cases.