[A] fresh, funny memoir ... James’s voice is swift, charming and surprising, and it’s delightful to follow as her richly imagined dreams of boarding school are replaced by deep friendships, self-compassion and humor ... James’s gift in Admissions is to provide company for Black students in predominantly white spaces. The work of Admissions is laying down, with wit and care, the burden James assumed at 15, that she — or any Black student, or all Black students — would manage the failures of a racially illiterate community ... This phenomenon is about the best depiction of elite whiteness I’ve read, nailing the belonging derived from institutional affiliation, which is therefore impersonal and false, but manifests value in spite of this.
The book is, not incidentally, an excellent memoir. James is unsparing and hilarious about her adolescent foibles, her outré fashion choices and insistence on telling everyone about her hobby of writing erotic fan fiction. Many former intense young nerds will cringe with loving recognition ... James’ generosity toward her younger self extends to everyone she writes about, even the classmates whose racism she describes. Ultimately, she seems less interested in indicting them than in thinking about the system of exclusive education that has encouraged their myopia about race and class—about any lives markedly different from their own—to flourish unchecked ... James has written a must-read book for prospective prep-school parents as well as white graduates seeking to better understand what these kinds of elite schools can offer their students—as well as what they, by their very nature, cannot.
James’s frank commentary and sense of humor provide a trenchant critique of a typical Catch-22: an elite institution wants diversity but doesn’t want to transform itself in order to be safe and welcoming for students of color ... Yara. Indeed, one of my favorite parts of Admissions is how honest James is in describing herself as a teenager ... should be required reading for anyone who works at a boarding school or is thinking of attending one—and, more broadly, anyone who cares about the work of transforming educational institutions. Certainly, I wish I’d had a copy of James’s book when I arrived at Taft, or, at least, that I’d had more awareness about how to talk with students about race or understood at a more granular level that Taft is such a racialized space.
James’ career forced her to remove the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia and look back on her time at Taft with a critical lens. She recounts anecdotes, some comical and some disturbing, about the predominately white student body and faculty ... James’ social commentary and sparkling wit shine throughout this absorbing and insightful coming-of-age memoir. Recommended for readers interested in a peek behind the curtain of private-school education.
James’s reflection on her time at Taft and career as an admissions counselor reveals both the subtle microaggressions and outright racism toward Black students in a predominantly white school ... This is a must-read for anyone who felt like their circle of friends was chosen for them or limited to one table in the cafeteria and for anyone who assumes the lives of privileged Black students are devoid of racism.
The author has a unique and timely story to tell, but her recollections of her years at Taft are detailed to a fault. The result is an often rambling narrative that, in (over-)recounting the minutiae of her everyday experiences, often drifts away from the pertinent race issues that are at the heart of her story ... A well-intentioned but overdone memoir in need of streamlining.
