Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania

by Frank Bruni Narrated by Frank Bruni

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Scott A. Sandage

…Bruni's point [is] that the best education is less a matter of getting into the best school than of making the best of wherever you go. His most vivid examples and insights emerge from sensitive conversations with parents, applicants, guidance counselors, admissions officers—and especially recent graduates, thriving 20-somethings who now feel lucky to have been rejected by their preferred schools.

The New York Times - Andrew Delbanco

…in his sensible and sensitive book, Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be, Frank Bruni…wants to help young people understand the urgent truth of his title…Mr. Bruni writes with compassion about the victims, but he admonishes them too and their parents more…This book seems destined to mean most to students—and their parents—who hope but fail to get into a brag-worthy college. But one of its strengths is that Mr. Bruni includes among those who are damaged by the college chase the putative "winners" as well as the "losers"…He wants to help restore the excitement of going off to college, which should be a time for taking intellectual and social chances, for finding or confirming a passion, and for discovering yourself.

Publishers Weekly

01/26/2015
With great energy and enthusiasm, New York Times columnist Bruni takes a pin to “our society's warped obsession with elite colleges" and provides a commonsense check to the yearly “admissions mania" of students competing for coveted slots at top schools. In taking apart the “largely subjective" and “fatally flawed" rankings of U.S. News & World Report and reviewing the dearth of class diversity and “lack of imagination" at the pinnacle of higher education, Bruni tosses a rock through the undeserved “veneration of elite schools" and celebrates the democratic insistence that a “good student can get a good education just about anywhere." He fills the book with profiles of successful CEOs, politicians, entrepreneurs, and other known names to illustrate how self-starters turned their default school into a stepladder to success. Bruni's quick wit and slick style nimbly glosses over the systemic problems with American higher education and instead reassures floundering young adults and hand-wringing parents that college is and is not the most crucial years of a person's life, and that the true measure of success—“great careers and lives that matter"—is not bought with a diploma but built with “a robust and lasting energy for hard work." While Bruni's heartfelt argument ignores somewhat blissfully the deeper problems facing higher education, his insistence on an ideal liberal, humanistic college as a playground for the mind is a nostalgic and valuable contribution to the larger conversation. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

"For students, parents, teachers, and everyone else suffering during the college admissions process, Frank Bruni offers an outstanding resource. Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be is a thought-provoking look at how the system works-and a fresh, reassuring reminder of what really matters in the college experience."
-Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project and Happier at Home


"A mind-opening book. I'm pretty sure it's going to change my life. It's already changed the way I think."
-Pamela Druckerman, bestselling author of Bringing Up Bébé


"The supposition that intelligence can be measured, that success can be predicted, and that the combination of the two creates happiness is rightly exploded in this sharply observed and deeply felt book. In deconstructing the college admissions process, Frank Bruni exposes the folly by which enfranchised people measure their own lives. He speaks with a voice of urgent sanity."
-Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity

"For any adolescent sweating college admissions—and perhaps more critically, for any parent sweating college admissions—this book is required reading. With systematic, soothing precision, Bruni amasses evidence that lives up to his title, showing readers that there are thousands of paths to success in this world, only one of which is ivy-strewn, and that the fetish we've made of marquee-name colleges is as practically misguided as it is psychologically destructive. The result is a beta-blocker and eye-opener all rolled into one, certain to allay the anxious and enlighten the curious-particularly when April rolls around."
-Jennifer Senior, bestselling author of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood


"Frank Bruni provides the perfect course correction for students and parents who get sucked into the college admissions frenzy. I should know. I was one of them."
-Katie Couric

"Frank Bruni has a simple message for the freaked-out high school students of America. Calm down. Where you go to college matters far, far less than what you do once you get there (and afterward). He urges families to look beyond the usual suspects and find a school that's going to offer something more useful than a window sticker. His clear, well-researched book should be required reading for everyone caught up in the college-admissions game."
-William Deresiewicz, bestselling author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and The Way to a Meaningful Life

"For families caught up in college-application madness, this book provides a much-needed tonic. For the rest of us, it's an inspiring call for a wiser, saner approach to American higher education."
-Paul Tough, bestselling author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

"Parents naturally want the best for our children, and that's made us vulnerable to an exorbitant, anxiety-producing, soul-crushing college admissions process. Bruni not only challenges its premise but offers (desperately!) welcome relief, reassurance and comfort to those going through it. I will be giving this book to every single family I know with a high schooler!"
-Peggy Orenstein, bestselling author Cinderella Ate My Daughter

"Your worth is not determined by the university you went to. Or, in other words, "Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be." Alleluia. That's the exact mantra every student and parent must heed as they navigate the stressful college admissions process. I'm doing it for the fourth time and this excellent writer's new book could not have come at a better time for me. As Frank Bruni brilliantly demonstrates, your worth is your worth and it's yours to make wherever you go."
-Maria Shriver


"Written in a lively style but carrying a wallop, this is a book that family and educators cannot afford to overlook as they try to navigate the treacherous waters of college admissions."
-Kirkus

Library Journal

02/01/2015
College acceptance letters begin arriving in late March and culminate in National College Decision Day, May 1. However, for some students and their families, getting into the right university has become a frenzied process beginning in preschool with the express intent of an Ivy League acceptance letter. Bruni, a New York Times op-ed columnist and author (Born Round; Ambling into History), here looks at the entire admissions process and the increased cultural desire for an elitist education. To that end, he profiles successful Americans who did not attend elite institutions. He also talks with counselors who parse the admissions process and the true meaning of the college ratings scales. Bruni looks at what fuels the increased demand for a top educational experience as well as studies, the results of which defy the notion that success in life is dependent on where you attend classes. VERDICT Bruni's investigative reporting skills serve his audience (parents and students) well. His accessible narrative challenges the cultural fixation on elite educations while illuminating the commonalities of college experiences that have resulted in professional success and lives well lived. A worthy addition to college admissions literature. [See Prepub Alert, 9/29/14.]—Jane Scott, Clark Lib., Univ. of Portland, OR

Kirkus Reviews

2014-12-21
New York Times op-ed columnist Bruni (Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-time Eater, 2009, etc.) shows why rejection by an Ivy League college need not be a disaster and may even be a blessing. The author attributes the frenzy attached to college admission to the emphasis on branding and privilege, which increasingly characterize our society as the income gap widens. All too often, admission to a top college becomes a goal in itself while the quality of a well-rounded education takes second place. There are many hurdles to be overcome, beginning as early as preschool. Prowess in sports, community service and other extracurricular activities are items for the student's resume along with high grades and test scores. Only after winning a place in an elite institution can the student afford to relax. "The sale is more important than the product," writes Bruni, who presents several cases, including his own experience, to show how being rejected by the top rung may be a blessing in disguise. Getting an education off the charted path can be a life-changing experience. Forced out of their comfort zones, students may become more self-reliant, more flexible and able to succeed, and they may get a better education to boot. The author takes the University of Arizona as an example. It offers a high-quality education with a faculty that includes two Nobel laureates, five Pulitzer Prize winners and more. Written in a lively style but carrying a wallop, this is a book that family and educators cannot afford to overlook as they try to navigate the treacherous waters of college admissions.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173410245
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	03/17/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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