Admission Lottery

How do staff members at a selective college near Boston decide which applicants to admit? Forced to cut costs, Max Danker, Dean of Admissions, and Psychology Professor Marina Dubrova decide to apply her theory that people will rise to others' expectations of them. Theory becomes practice when Max and his staff admit some of their applicants randomly, while those admitted the traditional way have their recommendations and achievements outside of the classroom carefully screened. What group will Katie Lorko, an applicant uniquely connected to one Admissions staffer fall into? Can Max and Marina implement and evaluate their experiment before the Administration finds out? Written by a retired MIT Associate Director of Admissions, this book explains how and why colleges admit applicants.

Bette Johnson was Associate Director of Admissions for twenty-one years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has a Ph.D. in Educational Research from Boston College, a Master’s degree from Northwestern University and a Bachelor’s degree from Tufts University. She lives in Massachusetts, and is married to John Williamson, Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Admission Lottery contains vignettes from her experience as well as some imagined possibilities. Suggestions from the author about applying to college: Apply to your dream college. Apply to other colleges where you are willing to go and that admit a higher percentage of applicants than your dream school does. More expensive colleges are not necessarily better for you. Consider the loan debt you will have for each of the colleges to which you have been admitted. Plan to make the most of the opportunities at the college where you enroll.