Brain Spill Book Review #12

The Gatekeepers

By Jacques Steinberg

Setting

The Gatekeepers is a nonfiction book that takes place in the late 20th Century and the early 21st Century. The story is focused around the Wesleyan University.

Summary

The book follows Ralph Figueroa, an admissions officer at Wesleyan, as he advertises Wesleyan and as he decides whether or not to admit certain applicants or not.

Characters

Ralph Figueroa

Ralph was an admissions officer at Wesleyan at the time when the book took place. Ralph comes from a Hispanic family from southern California, and he feels connected to the students from bad backgrounds that apply to Wesleyan.

Julianna Bentes

Julianna is a prospective Wesleyan student who attended Harvard-Westlake school on scholarship. Being that she is ethnically Brazilian, African, and Caucasian, she dances, and she has good grades, she is one of the top students in the United States. 

Migizi Pensoneau

Migizi is a Native American attending a prep school. Although he had below-average grades before attending the prep school, Migizi's ethnicity and SAT scores make him attractive to quite a few schools, including Wesleyan.

Jordan Goldman

Jordan is a student from Staten Island who is an aspiring writer. Although told not to, Jordan wants to send samples of his writing with is application. He also  is best friends with Devin, a boy who cannot stand on his own. His friendship with Devin is what he writes about in one of his college essays.

Becca Jannol

Becca is the president of  Harvard-Westlake. She has average grades and SAT scores and she once accepted a marijuana-laced brownie. When the student who brought the brownies to school was caught, Becca was the only student to admit that she accepted a brownie. After Becca decides to write about this in her admissions essay, the reactions from colleges vary, though Ralph wants to get Becca into Wesleyan.

Aggie Ramirez

Aggie is from a Hispanic background. She attends a private school and is school president. She, unfortunately, has low SAT and senior year grades. The rest of her grades are fine, though. She also says that her bad senior grades are due to her overload of extracurricular activities. She is, though, a prospective student at Wesleyan.

Tiffany Wang

Tiffany is a northern Californian Asian-American. Tiffany had average grades and was active in extracurricular activities, but she fails to expand on them in her essay. She does have a chance at getting accepted at Wesleyan, though.

Conclusion

The book was very interesting and really gets the reader connected with the characters. The book does go off on several rabbit trails, though, but I liked it. 7 waffles out of 11.