The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

Jerome Karabel

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005 - 711 pages

A landmark, revelatory history of admissions from 1900 to today—and how it shaped a nation

The competition for a spot in the Ivy League—widely considered the ticket to success—is fierce and getting fiercer. But the admissions policies of elite universities have long been both tightly controlled and shrouded in secrecy. In The Chosen, the Berkeley sociologist Jerome Karabel lifts the veil on a century of admission and exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. How did the policies of our elite schools evolve? Whom have they let in and why? And what do those policies say about America?

A grand narrative brimming with insights, The Chosen provides a lens through which to examine some of the main events and movements of America in the twentieth century—from immigration restriction and the Great Depression to the dropping of the atomic bomb and the launching of Sputnik, from the Cold War to the triumph of the market ethos.

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 accept women only after realizing that they were losing men to colleges (such as Harvard and Stanford) that had begun accepting "the second sex"; Harvard had a systematic quota on "intellectuals" until quite recently; and discrimination against Asian Americans in the 1980s mirrored the treatment of Jews earlier in the century.

Drawing on decades of meticulous 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 FDR and Woodrow Wilson to Kingman Brewster and Archibald Cox, The Chosen charts the century-long battle over opportunity—and offers a new and deeply original perspective on American history.

Jerome Karabel is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow of the Longview Institute. An award-winning author, he has written for the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, the Nation, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.



"In vivid and electrifying prose, Karabel exposes the intimate and occasionally scandalous social and political relationships that marked college admissions at the Big Three throughout the twentieth century. The Chosen is a refreshingly candid account of the admissions madness at elite colleges, where merit often functioned simply as a handmaiden to power." -- Lani Guinier, Bennett Boskey Professor at Harvard Law School and coauthor of The Miner's Canary

"Millions of Americans think of the Ivy League as a training ground for the best and brightest. But for most of the twentieth century Harvard, Yale, and Princeton were more interested in sustaining the aristocracy than in shaping the nation's intellectual elite. Jerome Karabel's marvelous study traces the titanic struggles that defined--and redefined--the Ivy ideal. An utterly absorbing account of politics and privilege on America's most revered campuses." -- Kevin Boyle, National Book Award-winning author of Arc of Justice

"This is a remarkable book. Until you read it, you can have no real idea how crudely these elite universities discriminated in admissions -- against women, Jews, blacks, and others. It is a staggering hidden history." --Anthony Lewis, former New York Times columnist and author of Gideon's Trumpet

"A magisterial and even-handed account of a vexed and important issue." -- Justin Kaplan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain and Walt Whitman

"As someone who was chosen for Princeton a long time ago (but surely couldn't get in now), I was fascinated by Jerome Karabel's full and rich account of how my alma mater, and Harvard and Yale, picked us so often for all the wrong reasons. I learned much more about my species from reading The Chosen than ever I did when I was there myself, in flower." -- Frank Deford, NPR commentator and author of The Old Ball Game

"The Chosen is a tour de force of investigative sociology. Burrowing into the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton archives, Karabel has found out where a lot of minds as well as bodies were buried, then exhumed them and dragged them into the light. Anyone who wishes to understand the shifting grounds of the American establishment should read The Chosen, get shocked by the raw bigotries of the past, and accept Karabel's challenge to rethink the meritocratic ideal." -- Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology, Columbia University, and author of The Sixties

"This dispassionate book deals with the reluctant, often painful, always controversial, processes by which the Big Three -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton -- have democratized themselves. The Chosen is a fascinating study in American cultural history." -- Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Days

Avis des internautes

THE CHOSEN: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

Avis d'utilisateur  - Kirkus

Karabel's strenuously detailed, sometimes repetitive examination of admissions policies at Ivy League schools shows that the history of America's top universities is steeped in systematic ...

The Chosen: the hidden history of admission and exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

Avis d'utilisateur  - Not Available - Book Verdict

Who gets into what college, and why? Karabel (sociology, Univ. of California, Berkeley) has produced a powerful study of the origins of current practices of selective admission at the "Big Three" and ...

Table des matières

• INTRODUCTION: 1
• The Origins of Selective Admissions 19001933: 11
• Elite Education and the Protestant Ethos: 13
• The Big Three Before Selective Admissions: 39
• Harvard and the Battle over Restriction: 77
• The Jewish Problem at Yale and Princeton: 110
• The Struggle Over Meritocracy 19331965: 137
• Harvards Conant The Man and His Ideals: 139
• The Reality of Admissions Under Conant: 166
• Reluctant Reform Comes to Yale: 200
• Princeton The Club Expands Its Membership: 227
• Wilbur Bender and His Legacy: 248
• Tradition and Change at Old Nassau: 294
• Yale From Insularity to Inclusion: 321
• Inclusion and the Persistence of Privilege 19652005: 347
• Inky Clark Kingman Brewster and the Revolution at Yale: 349
• Racial Conflict and the Incorporation of Blacks: 378
• Coeducation and the Struggle for Gender Equality: 410
• The Alumni Revolt at Yale and Princeton: 449
• Diversity the Bakke Case and the Defense of Autonomy: 483
• Money the Market Ethos and the Struggle for Position: 514
• The Battle over Merit: 536
• NOTES: 559
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: 676
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: 683
• PHOTO CREDITS: 688
• INDEX: 689

À propos de l'auteur

JEROME KARABEL is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow of the Longview Institute, a new progressive think tank. An award-winning scholar, Karabel has appeared on Nightline, Today, and All Things Considered. He has written for the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, the Nation, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.

Informations bibliographiques

• Titre: The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton; . Series
• Auteur: Jerome Karabel
• Édition: illustrée
• Éditeur: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005
• ISBN: 0618574581, 9780618574582
• Longueur: 711 pages