The CTCL Bookshelf

If you want to know more about college students, college admission, college choice, etc., consider the following books. If you have suggestions for other titles that could be added to this list, let us know.

In no particular order, we recommend:

• Dream College: How to Help Your Child Get into the Top Schools Second Edition by Kpakpundu Ezeze
• Where You Go Is Not Who You Are by Frank Bruni
• In Defense of a Liberal Arts Education by Fareed Zakaria
• Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the the American Elite by William Deresiewicz
• Beyond the University by Michael S. Roth
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
• How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott-Haims
• College Admission: From Application to Acceptance, Step by Step by Robin Mamlet and Christine VanDeVelde
• The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College by Jacques Steinberg
• Winning the College Admission Game: Strategies for Parents & Students by Peter Van Buskirk
• Rewarding Strivers by Richard D. Kahlenberg
• The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager by Thomas Hine
• Increasing Access to College: Extending Possibilities for All Students by William G. Tierney
• The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore
• Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz
• The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs
• Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities by Camille Z. Charles
• Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities by William G. Bowen
• Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times by Margaret Nelson
• College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be by Andrew Delbanco
• What Is College For?: The Public Purpose of Higher Education by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann
• Class Warfare: Class, Race, and College Admissions in Top-Tier Secondary Schools by Lois Weis, Kristin Cipollone, Heather Jenkins
• Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity by Ken Armstrong
• The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids by Madeline Levine
• Liberal Arts at the Brink by Victor E. Ferrall Jr.
• Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education by David L. Kirp
• After Admission: From College Access to College Success: From College Access to College Success by James E. Rosenbaum, Regina Deil-amen, Ann E. Person
• Standardized Minds: The High Price Of America’s Testing Culture And What We Can Do To Change It by Peter Sacks
• Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education by Peter Sacks
• The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins
• The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy by Nicholas Lemann
• The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton by Jerome Karabel
• Ready, Willing, and Able: A Developmental Approach to College Access and Success by Mandy Savitz-Romer, Suzanne M. Bouffard
• Beyond College For All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half by James E. Rosenbaum
• Speaking of Race and Class: The Student Experience at an Elite College by Elizabeth Aries, Richard Berman
• Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality by Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Laura Hamilton
• Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sports by Jay M Smith, Mary Willingham
• College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students by Jeffrey J. Selingo
• Why Choose the Liberal Arts? by Mark William Roche
• The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates by Daniel Golden
• Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
• The Blessing of a B Minus: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Resilient Teenagers by Wendy Mogel Ph.D.
• A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League by Ron Suskind
• Looking Beyond the Ivy League and Colleges That Change Lives by Loren Pope
• Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right Colleges — and Find Themselves by David L. Marcus
• Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know about Getting into College by Sally P. Springer, Jon Reider, Joyce Vining Morgan