“This look at how undergraduates are admitted to selective colleges will disillusion the collegebound and exasperate their parents. Rachel Toor, a former admissions officer at Duke University, describes a system deviled by numbers, side effects, and backfires. Solid, mainstream students, she warns, are pigeonholed as BWRK’s (“bright, well-rounded kids”) and easily dismissed. (“Another BWRK. Zip. How boring.”) “Angular” or “well-lopsided” students, those with highly focused interests, stand a better chance. So do rural valedictorians — sentimental favorites — and students who seek early decision. So do minority applicants — on whose coattails, intriguingly, higher-scoring white classmates from the same school may ride into college. Parents of public school students will be disheartened at the friendly buyer-seller relationship that often prevails between elite colleges and private schools. Toor proves a quick-witted quite, though one prone to wear feelings on her sleeve — most notably, a sympathy for bright, troubled teenaged women, which shapes this book as it must have shaped Duke’s classes.” NYTimes Book Review “… Admissions Confidential is a funny and revealing look inside the closed door of the college admissions office.” Washington Times “…An interesting anecdote to the hype is a new book, Admissions Confidential, by Rachel Toor… Duke, which accepts only a small percentage of the kids who apply, is not the typical American university. Still, even students and parents playing the admissions game at less selective schools can gain insight from Toor’s insider view.” Columbus Dispatch “Read your way to a smarter future…. In Admissions Confidential, Rachel Toor gives real insight into the minds of those mythic creatures whose sole purpose is to torture high-school seniors (she was an admissions counselor at Duke University.” Elle Girl