Everybody knows that the schools of the Ivy League -- universally touted as the pinnacle of American higher education -- have graduated countless political leaders, corporate titans, and global power brokers. But did you know these schools have also produced murderers, warmongers, traitors, plagiarists, slave traders, pederasts, and every other variety of moral reprobate? Whether you're a high school student grinding away in the hope of gaining admission to one of these institutions, a parent propelling a child toward Ivy glory, a current Ivy League undergraduate wondering "What the hell is this place?" -- or even an Ivy League alum, professor, administrator, or dropout -- this book was written specifically for you. As a warning. Because there are certain things -- monstrous things -- that go unmentioned in the catalog, campus tour, or employment package. And if your Ivy League application was rejected, here's compelling and consoling evidence of how lucky you are.
"Exploring the character of each school and what sets it apart, from renowned graduates and dominant political stances to athletic rivalries, architectural styles, pop culture references, or even popular fashions."--P. 11.
"No Ivy League gracefully delivers a messy truth behind the essential process of questioning and reckoning." — Nate Powell, artist of the March trilogy When 17-year-old Hazel takes a summer job clearing ivy from the forest in Portland, Oregon, the only plan is to earn some extra cash to put toward concert tickets. Homeschooled, affluent, and sheltered, Hazel soon finds that working side by side with at-risk teens leaves no room for comforting illusions of equality and understanding. This uncomfortable and compelling memoir is an important story of a teen’s awakening to the racial insularity of the upper class, the power of white privilege, and the hidden history of segregation in Portland.
An honest and deeply reported account of five women and the opportunities and frustrations they face in the year following their graduation from an elite university. Recent Princeton graduate Caroline Kitchener weaves together her experiences from her first year after college with that of four of her peers in order to delve more deeply into what the world now offers a female college graduate, and how the world perceives them. Each of the five girls in this diverse group were expected to attend college—but most had no clear expectations for their futures post-graduation. And as Kitchener follows each member of the group, it becomes harder to reduce them to stereotypes, harder either to defend or to judge their choices. Kitchener navigates expertly between the very personal and the wider sociological perspectives as she outlines a chronological year in the lives of all five women, illuminating and clarifying each one of their choices, victories, and foibles. Both a broad and an intensely individual exploration, Post Grad is a portrait of the shifting environment of that important year after graduation, as well as an intimate look at how a select group of very different individuals handles its challenges—navigating family tensions, relationships, jobs, and that ever-elusive notion of independence.
Read award-winning journalist Frank Bruni's New York Times bestseller: an inspiring manifesto about everything wrong with today's frenzied college admissions process and how to make the most of your college years. Over the last few decades, Americans have turned college admissions into a terrifying and occasionally devastating process, preceded by test prep, tutors, all sorts of stratagems, all kinds of rankings, and a conviction among too many young people that their futures will be determined and their worth established by which schools say yes and which say no. In Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be, Frank Bruni explains why this mindset is wrong, giving students and their parents a new perspective on this brutal, deeply flawed competition and a path out of the anxiety that it provokes. Bruni, a bestselling author and a columnist for the New York Times, shows that the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices, governors' mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants. Through statistics, surveys, and the stories of hugely successful people, he demonstrates that many kinds of colleges serve as ideal springboards. And he illuminates how to make the most of them. What matters in the end are students' efforts in and out of the classroom, not the name on their diploma. Where you go isn't who you'll be. Americans need to hear that--and this indispensable manifesto says it with eloquence and respect for the real promise of higher education.
The inspiring, true coming-of-age story of a ferociously determined young man who, armed only with his intellect and his willpower, fights his way out of despair. In 1993, Cedric Jennings was a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate was well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boasted an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric had almost no friends. He ate lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he asked for, knowing that he was really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition—which was fully supported by his forceful mother—was to attend a top college. In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realized that ambition when he began as a freshman at Brown University. But he didn't leave his struggles behind. He found himself unprepared for college: he struggled to master classwork and fit in with the white upper-class students. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric was left to rely on his intelligence and his determination to maintain hope in the unseen—a future of acceptance and reward. In this updated edition, A Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years of high school, follows him through his difficult first year at Brown, and tells the story of his subsequent successes in college and the world of work. Eye-opening, sometimes humorous, and often deeply moving, A Hope in the Unseen weaves a crucial new thread into the rich and ongoing narrative of the American experience.
Race, class, and hormones combine and combust when a Harvard freshman and his two friends attempt to join the staff of the Harpoon, the school's iconic humor magazine. Around Harvard Square is the winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Youth/Teens)! Around Harvard Square has been named a 2020 Honor Book by the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People "A smart, satirical novel about surviving the racial and cultural tensions ratcheted up in the elite Harvard hothouse. Farley has created a marvelously engaging and diverse set of characters, at the center of which is a nerdy Jamaican American with a philosophical bent and his cohort of oddballs struggling to win a spot on Harvard's brainy humor magazine, which provides a springboard for Farley to dive into the ethics of comedy, among other subjects." --National Book Review, included in Monday's 5 Hot Books "For anyone who likes satire, this quick-witted tale...catches a bundle of truths about a very particular and powerful corner of our world." --New West Indian Guide "Around Harvard Square [is] C.J. Farley's fun novel about an exceptional Jamaican student-athlete facing class and race issues to get a spot on an elite Harvard University humor magazine." --New York Daily News, included in CaribBeat column "C.J. Farley's Around Harvard Square is a witty and artful narrative of a society on the crossroads of change...A must read." --The Gleaner (Jamaica) Included in the American Booksellers Association's ABC Best Books for Young Adult Readers 2019! Included in Publishers Weekly's Spring 2019 Children's Announcements Included in Rich in Color's Six Books to Kickstart April "In his new novel, Around Harvard Square, Farley writes about a scandal strikingly similar to how Singer helped parents and coaches allegedly exploit athletic programs of schools like Yale, Georgetown, and USC." --Fox 5 (New York) "This former Lampoon editor, journalist, and now satirical novelist, has lots of insight into the discrepancies around race and gender that remain present in the comedy industry." --CityLine (WCVB-TV Boston) "Around Harvard Square brings social commentary to college life, approaching the issues in a humorous attitude...Farley makes the injustices more tangible to a younger audience who may be future students at such institutions, and he shows how little progression has been made in the educational system regarding institutional racism." --Prism Review Tosh Livingston, superstar student-athlete from small-town USA, thinks he's made it big as a rising freshman at Harvard University. Not so fast! Once on campus, he's ensnared in a frenzied competition to win a spot on Harvard's legendary humor magazine, the Harpoon. Tosh soon finds that joining the Harpoon is a weird and surprisingly dangerous pursuit. He faces off against a secret society of super-rich kids, gets schooled by a philosophy professor who loves flunking everyone, and teams up with a genius student-cartoonist with an agenda of her own. Along the way, Tosh and his band of misfit freshman friends unearth long-buried mysteries about the Ivy League that will rock the Ivory Tower and change their lives forever...if they can survive the semester. With its whip-smart humor and fast-paced narrative, Around Harvard Square will appeal to readers of all ages interested in exploring the complicated roles that race and class play in higher education.
Home schooling has long been regarded as a last resort, particularly by African-American families. But in this inspirational and practical memoir, Paula Penn-Nabrit shares her intimate experiences of home-schooling her three sons, Charles, Damon, and Evan. Paula and her husband, C. Madison, decided to home-school their children after racial incidents at public and private schools led them to the conclusion that the traditional educational system would be damaging to their sons’ self-esteem. This decision was especially poignant for the Nabrit family because C. Madison’s uncle was the famed civil rights attorney James Nabrit, who, with Thurgood Marshall, had argued Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court; to other members of their family, it seemed as if Paula and C. Madison were turning their backs on a rich educational legacy. But ultimately, Paula and C. Madison felt that they knew what was best for their sons. So in 1991—when Evan was nine and twins Charles and Damon were eleven—the children were withdrawn from the exclusive country day school they’d been attending. In Morning by Morning, Paula Penn-Nabrit discusses her family’s emotional transition to home schooling and shares the nuts and bolts of the boys’ educational experience. She explains how she and her husband developed a curriculum, provided adequate exposure to the arts as well as quiet time for reflection and meditation, initiated quality opportunities for volunteerism, and sought out athletic activities for their sons. At the end of each chapter, she offers advice on how readers can incorporate some of the steps her family took—even if they aren’t able to home-school; plus, there’s a website resource guide at the end of the book. Charles and Damon were eventually admitted to Princeton, and Evan attended Amherst College. But Morning by Morning is frank about the challenges the boys faced in their transition from home schooling to the college experience, and Penn-Nabrit reflects on some things she might have done differently. With great warmth and perception, Paula Penn-Nabrit discusses her personal experience and the amazing outcome of her home-schooling experience: three spiritually and intellectually well balanced sons who attended some of the top educational institutions in this country. What we learned from home schooling: -Use your time wisely. -Education is more than academics. -The idea of parent as teacher doesn’t have to end at kindergarten. -The family is our introduction to community. -Extended family is a safety net. -Yes, kids really do better in environments designed for them. -Travel is an education. -Athletics is more than competitive sports. -Get used to diversity. -It’s okay if your kids get angry at you—they’ll get over it! -from Morning by Morning From the Hardcover edition.
Enroll in this boarding school thriller about a group of prep school elites who would kill to get into the college of their dreams...literally. "The Plastics meet the Heathers in this murder mystery about ruthless Ivy League ambition." -Kirkus Reviews Everyone knows the Ivies: the most coveted universities in the United States. Far more important are the Ivies. The Ivies at Claflin Academy, that is. Five girls with the same mission: to get into the Ivy League by any means necessary. I would know. I'm one of them. We disrupt class ranks, club leaderships, and academic competitions...among other things. We improve our own odds by decreasing the fortunes of others. Because hyper-elite competitive college admissions is serious business. And in some cases, it's deadly. Alexa Donne delivers a nail-biting and timely thriller about teens who will stop at nothing to get into the college of their dreams. Too bad no one told them murder isn't an extracurricular.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Otherworld series and Hemlock Island, the first chilling novel in the Cainsville series. Olivia Taylor-Jones is shattered to learn that she’s adopted. Her biological parents? Notorious serial killers. On a quest to learn more about her past, Olivia lands in the small town of Cainsville, Illinois. As she draws on long-hidden abilities, Olivia begins to realize that there are dark secrets in Cainsville—and powers lurking in the shadows.
