Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping

Julie R. Posselt

Published by Harvard University Press 2016

Inside Graduate Admissions

Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping

Julie R. Posselt

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674915640

Overview
Contents

About this book

Advanced degrees are necessary for careers that once required only a college education. Yet little has been written about who gets into grad school and why. Julie Posselt pulls back the curtain on this secret process, revealing how faculty evaluate applicants in top-ranked doctoral programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

Author / Editor information

Posselt Julie R. :

Julie R. Posselt is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Michigan.

Reviews

A pleasure to read. Posselt offers a deep and compelling take on graduate admissions procedures and practices—a topic that has received little attention, despite a relatively large body of work on undergraduate admissions. This book will undoubtedly be of great interest to scholars from a broad array of disciplines, particularly when it comes to the practicalities of conducting admissions work.
-- Laura T. Hamilton, co-author of Paying for the Party

Inside Graduate Admissions is an important and exceedingly well-written book. Posselt enters a closely guarded corner of academic work, illuminating one of the most pressing policy questions of our time: how to diversify higher education student bodies, and through that, the intellectual, political, and professional leadership of our nation.
-- Anna Neumann, author of Professing to Learn

Politicians, judges, journalists, parents, and prospective students subject the admissions policies of undergraduate colleges and professional schools to considerable scrutiny, with much public debate over appropriate criteria. But the question of who gets into Ph.D. programs has by comparison escaped much discussion. That may change with the publication of Inside Graduate Admissions…While the departments reviewed in the book remain secret, the general process used by elite departments would now appear to be more open as a result of Posselt’s book.
-- Scott Jaschik Inside Higher Ed

Revealing…Provide[s] clear, consistent insights into what admissions committees look for.
-- Beryl Lieff Benderly Science

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction Gatekeeping Reconsidered Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter One. Decision Making as Deliberative Bureaucracy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
Chapter Two. Meanings of Merit and Diversity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
Chapter Three. Disciplinary Logics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
Chapter Four. Mirror, Mirror Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Chapter Five. The Search for Intelligent Life Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
Chapter Six. International Students and Ambiguities of Holistic Review Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Conclusion Merit beyond the Mirror Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Methodological Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: College/higher education;Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 240
Illustrations
- Other: 12 tables

eBook

Published: January 11, 2016
ISBN: 9780674915640