Admission

After seeing the trailer for Tina Fey's new movie Admission, I picked up the novel.  I figured it made sense to read the book first, since the book is (nearly) always better than the film.*  Both the book and movie revolve around an admissions officer at Princeton.  Beyond that, though, I'm not sure how much they have in common:  the trailer suggests that the movie is a comedy whereas I found the book to be fairly depressing.

One common theme through the novel is how *difficult* it is to be an admissions officer at a top-ranked institution:  parsing through thousands of remarkable applicants who, at a certain point, are virtually indistinguishable.  After all, nearly every applicant has stellar grades, excels on standardized tests, participates in extracurricular activities, and volunteers.  And the pressure that comes with making those judgments, knowing that your decision as an admission officer will affect the applicant's next four years (if not the rest of their life.)

The novel also touches on the fact that, while high school students are plagued with insecurities, admission to an "elite" university doesn't necessarily assuage those fears:

"Inside every one of [the college] students, she understood now, was a person who didn't live up to his or her own expectations, a person too fat, too slow, whose hair wouldn't hold a curl, who had no gift for languages, who lacked the gene for math.  They were convinced they were not all they'd been cracked up to be:  the track star, the classicist, valedictorian, perennial leading lady, campus fixer, or teacher's favorite.  The driven ones… feared they weren't driven enough, and the slackers were sure they'd find out how deficient they were if they ever did apply themselves.  Up and down the corridors of the dormitories, behind each closed door, and whether the person within was davening over organic chemistry or drinking himself into a store, the Dartmouth she'd attended was populated by young people who were terrified of exposure."

While the impostor phenomenon isn't something new - and not necessarily sometimes that even goes away - I do think that it's particularly pronounced in college.  And, perhaps, your first year at a law firm. ;)

*  Notable exceptions:  Gone With the Wind, The Godfather.