This is a timely book that will interest teens who are trying to get into college or who have been following the college admission scandals. The characters are real and interesting, very relatable. I was surprised how relatable even the spoiled rich children were. Julie Buxbaum captures the teenage experience.

Loved that the author was in the middle of writing another book when the admissions scandal broke out and she couldn’t help but write this one! Definitely mirrors what happened with the celebrities who were caught but told from the slightly clueless daughters POV.

This book explores the college admission scandals through the lens of a fictional girl named Chloe. She is living a good life, going to a prestigious private school, hanging out with her friends, and really not worrying all that much about school. As college admissions deadlines loom and she is still struggling with her SAT scores, her parents step in and hire a consultant. Unbeknownst to Chloe, the consultant alters her college application and her parents make donations to get her in to the school of her dreams. The book has an engaging before and after format and really takes into thought the victims in this kind of crime. An interesting, thought-provoking read.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I had a hard time getting into it at first, but soon found myself sucked in to the world of college admissions scandals. I wasn't completely empathetic towards the family as a whole, as I felt they were so privileged that they had a hard time seeing the error of their ways and why they had to be punished for what they had done. I do think that was intentional on the author's part and can see why she made it that way. Something just felt off in the dynamic of the family as a whole.
I did, however, really like the relationships between Chloe and her mother and between Chloe and Isla. They were tender and really showed how vulnerable these characters felt around each other.
I also really enjoyed how much Chloe had grown during the book. She was really shallow at the beginning but really came to some realizations about herself and the world around her by the end. I enjoyed watching her journey from Point A to Point B.

I started reading this book right at the time my son was waiting to hear about admission to college and anxiety was high, so I put it down until today. Based on the recent college admissions scandal, this book is written from the POV of a student who benefitted from her parents’ use of a “college counselor.” The book is well-written and a quick YA read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Julie Buxbaum for the ARC of Admission in exchange for an honest review!

The college admissions process can be stressful and very difficult for many high school Juniors and Seniors. It is no different for Chloe Berringer, who is the daughter of a famous actress. Chloe has a good life, she attends a great high school, loves her best friend, Shola and has starting dating her dream guy, Levi. As she starts her senior year, she begins her admission process with the help of her mom and private admissions counselor. As her senior year goes on, she realizes that maybe her admission process is different than her other classmates. Will Chloe gain admission to her dream school or are the events happening in her life in relation to applying to college to good to be true?

First off, I really liked this book!! This books really sheds light on privilege and social status in regards to the college admissions scandal. I think this book did a great job of addressing issues in a way that young adults and adults alike can understand.

Overall, I’m giving this book a 3.75/5. I enjoyed the two different perspectives of the book, changing between “then” and “now”. I also liked the characters, but I felt like some could have used more development, like Shola and Isla. I enjoyed reading Chloe’s “coming of age” (in a sense) as she begins to understand how not only her actions, but also her families, effected her admissions process and caused her to loose everything.

This was a fast read and I think people will love it when it is published!!

Admission is a very timely novel about wealth and privilege, especially when it comes to the college admissions process. Inspired by the celeb admission scandal, the story follows Chloe, whose mom is a B-List celebrity. The story not only takes you through the fallout of the scandal, but the events leading up to it. Chloe has to come to terms with her involvement in the scam, as well as, the consequences this has on her social life.

*Minor spoilers*
Admission was a fairly quick read, but overall rather predictable. I would have like to seen more development of Chole and her friends. However I did really enjoy seeing how the different members of the family dealt with the consequences of their actions. I would love to see more from Isla and what Chloe does in the future.

A ripped-from the headlines novel exploring privilege and scandal in the college admissions process. As the mother of a high school senior, I viewed this book with interest. I appreciate the way Buxbaum (a longtime favorite author for me) weaves the narrative between past and present, and keeps things moving along at a great pace. This is a good read emerging from a frustrating situation. And I agree with the reviewer who said it was a good move by the publisher to push this book out to December, as it would likely be lost in the sea of larger challenges in the world right now.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children’s Books for providing me with a digital ARC of Admission in exchange for an honest review.
*3.5 stars*
I thought that this book did a really good job of examining various forms of privilege and how people benefit from it. The main character, Chloe, has lived a privileged life in many ways. While she is aware of some of her privileges, throughout the book she learns about how her silence has made her complicit in benefiting from privilege. I liked how the story switched back and forth between the present and the past, so that the reader can see how the actions in the past led the the consequences in the present. One thing that I did not like about this book was how Chloe relied on her Black best friend, Shola, to do the emotional labor of calling Chloe out when she makes privileged or entitled statements. Overall, this story was a fast read and I enjoyed how the author used the story of the college admissions scandal to open up conversations about privilege and accountability.

"Admission" is the perfect novel of our time, given the college admissions scandal that we've so much about on the news, with the wealthy, including several famous Hollywood starts, buying their children's way into top colleges through cheating on the SAT, to fake athletic endeavors of sports their kids have never participated in. High school Senior Chloe Wynn Berringer has a pretty good life- she has an amazing best friend, she's finally dating the boy she's had a crush on since middle school, and her mom, Hollywood actress Joy Fields, is starting to experience another upswing in her career. However, as Chloe watches her friends and boyfriend talk about the top Ivy League schools that they are hoping to get into for college, Chloe, who admittedly doesn't have the best of grades, is being advised by her college counselor at school that she needs to find schools that are more suitable for her to apply too, which is hard to hear given her dream school is the prestigious Southern California College (SCC). Chloe suddenly finds herself working with a college consultant, hired by her parents on the recommendation of her mom's best friend, and suddenly, she's receiving accommodations on the SAT, has been told she had ADHD, and they are tweaking her essays and asking for head-shot photos. Chloe receives the good news that she's been accepted to SCC, and she and her family could not be more excited. And then morning, Chloe answers the front door to find a row of FBI agents there to arrest her mother for her role in the college scam.

As more and more information comes out about the case, and Chloe is facing the possibility of being arrested herself, she needs to grapple with the fact that even though she wasn't actively and knowingly cheating on on her college admissions, does not saying anything when things came up that didn't seem right count as knowing? And if so, does that make her complicit and guilty as well?

"Admission" was a quick easy read, and an enjoyable one as well! I loved the way it alternated back and forth between then (before the FBI raid) to now (from the moment of the raid to the present) in telling the events that led up to Chloe's mom's arrest, as well as how the family, and Chloe are dealing with it currently.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children's, Delcorte Press for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Children’s and Delacorte Press for the advance reader copy of Admission by awesome author, Julie Buxbaum, in exchange for an honest review. I was riveted by this ripped from the headlines novel dealing with the college admissions bribery scandal. Julie Buxbaum writes a compelling story to shed light on Chloe’s life THEN and Chloe’s life NOW as she unlocks her front door to the FBI one fateful morning. Senior Chloe was her own worst enemy at times. Her family has money, her mother is a TV star, but Chloe struggles in school, at home, and internally. As she worries over getting into a college and getting the grades she needs, her parents jump to pay for coaches to help her in writing and tutoring. Chloe’s best friend, Shola, was my favorite, a strong female character, she was always honest with Chloe and frank about her struggles as a product of Nigerian immigrant parents and their struggles with money. The THEN chapters reveal Chloe as very insecure, vacillating between trying to go along with her parents’ wishes and speaking up about what she wants. I could not stop turning the pages in the NOW as Chloe learns/lives the stark loneliness of being reviled by the world, her friends, her school. Throughout the scandal her younger, smarter sister, Isla, pushes Chloe to face reality and contemplate what exactly Chloe knew and when she knew it. Buxbaum’s novels packs a punch; I rooted for Chloe’s growth, maturity, and self-acceptance. In our world of fierce competition, what makes people do what they do, what makes people accept dishonesty? Readers will be sharing this book and talking about it often!

3.5. I think it was smart to postpone the pub date for this one--with everything going on lately, the college admissions scandal seems less and less pertinent. Also, when I read this, I couldn't help picturing Lori Loughlin and her family in the place of Chloe, Isla, and her parents, which was distracting.

Nevertheless, this was a fairly compelling read for me; I can't say I totally related to Chloe, but overall she's a pretty likable main character. I'm also glad that Buxbaum used this book as an opportunity to talk about inequity in the college admissions process, though Shola (Chloe's best friend, who is Black) having to explain certain things to Chloe and taking on the onus of this was a little infuriating. I also thought the ending was fitting.

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

I highly enjoyed this character driven story as it does a good job explaining how a family would get to this point. I found Chloe's character very likable and easy to relate to which is probably one of the reasons I enjoyed the story so much. I also liked the fact that everything doesn't wrap up with an unnecessary happy ending but a realistic one, given the character interactions.

Thank you Random House Publishing for letting me have access to this ARC. Admission was a really intriguing read due to the connections I was able to make that has happened in the media recently with colleges. Chloe was a privileged girl who was living the life of her dreams until one day it all came crashing down. They dynamics between her relationship with her best friend was great because it has some underlying issues with race and topics that need to be discussed. The growth and change that happens with Chloe was fun to read and kept me interested through the entire book.

I'll admit it. I got caught up in the drama.

This book is loosely based on the recent scandal involving celebs/very rich people buying and bribing their kids' way into college. I followed the real life scandal for a day or two before I grew tired of it. But this book did a great job of showing the story from a different point of view.

This does not mean it made apologies for or tried to justify the fact that people cheat their way into an acceptance letter. All it did was show the fall out that this fictional family dealt with. And while the main character, Chloe, started out as pretty unlikable, she definitely grew and became less awful by the end. Still a little terrible, but so much better than the beginning.

I did love her sister, Isla, and her best friend, Shola. Both of these girls made Chloe open her eyes to see that, while she didn't actively take a role in the crime, she definitely didn't do anything to stop it. They were good people to have in her life.

*I just saw that this title was pushed back to December from the original May publish date*

This book is the first for me by this author Julie Buxbaum and thanks to NetGalley and the publisher I received this ARC copy!

Chloe is a senior and is studying her butt off for the SAT’s. She’s also the daughter of a Hollywood actress, so she has to have good scores to go to an “elite” college. Having a genius sister doesn’t help, because she’s younger and they don’t really hang out.
And she’s also a friend to Shola and Levi who are both geniuses. The pressure is on!

But Chloe doesn’t want to go to a big college. She’s already in the bottom ranks with her grades in high school and doesn’t like learning. Even the counselor in school told her she shouldn’t aim for the big ones. This is her first big challenge.

Her parents want only the best, so money is spent, a new medical condition is fabricated and the SAT score is altered.

But in one moment she has it all (a great family, an awesome best friend, a boyfriend she’s been crushing on since 7th grade and the college admission her parents wanted for her) and in the next it’s all over.

In the NOW parts of the book, you can tell what’s going on and where her friends are. The THEN flashbacks are a bit “boring”, so I skipped some parts.

All in all it was an interesting read and what maybe some families went through during this time and that maybe some kids where clueless or didn’t actually have a say.

This was really interesting. I have seen the college admissions scandal, but I didn't think about the children of the adults who lied, how they maybe didn't know what was going on and the ways they've been affected by this. I liked that they story jumped back and forth between now, when the scandal breaks, and before when Chloe was taking her SAT and started to see that something wasn't quite right.

Chloe has lived a privileged life, with no challenges or hardships until now. She doesn't try in school and doesn't have the grades or SAT score to get into an elite college. That's not a problem for Chloe, she's fine with going to a less prestigious school, but for her parents it's unacceptable. Chloe doesn't have the guts to stand up to her parents. so she goes along with the college advisor they hire, even when she suspects something shady is happening.

This is a good commentary on privilege, wealth, and how biased the education system is. Why is it legal to buy a building to get your child into college and take someone else's spot? Is prison the best punishment for a crime like this instead of paying a debt to society in the form of community service and fines? Also, at what point does a child stand up to their parents instead of believing that mom and dad know best?

This read quickly and I liked the characters, especially Isla who seemed like the only level headed person in the whole story. Chloe had to grow up and realize that parents make mistakes and you need to decide for yourself how your future will play out.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book.

This is the perfect summer read, a straight ripped the headlines take on the Admissions scandal. Enjoyed every moment of the book, even with the incorporations of flashbacks.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children's/Delacorte Press Publishing for letting me read and review this intriguing story.
This was a first for me by this author, Julie Buxbaum, and she was great. This was pretty well written and pulled from the headlines with the recent ongoing college admissions scandal that was in the news.
It was a different and unique story using that scandal in the news as inspiration about what it might have been like for those involved in the real-life scandal or what it could be like for those involved in that type of scandal. It talks about and addresses the difference between the rich and the average or poor and how they might react and handle this kind of scandal differently. There were a lot of different issues mentioned and addressed with this story between the MC, Chloe, and her best friend, Shola, and the differences in their lifestyles, access to things, white/rich privilege, and race especially between the two best friends.
There were a lot of things that I hadn't thought about as far as everything this could entail in a person's life if they were involved in this kind of scandal and how it might affect them as an individual, their family, their friends. It was very intriguing and interesting to look at things from a different perspective of what might have or could have been for the daughter of the mother who bribed someone for the daughter to get into college much like what happened in the news recently.
There is a lot examined and shown from different points of view with the characters in the family with how they might feel especially how the daughter might feel finding out her parents had bought her way into college. How this kind of thing could affect the family, their relationships with each other and their friends/boyfriends, and so forth.
It was a lot to cover and it was covered well and caused me to stop and think what would I have done if I was the mother - would there be anything that would make me want to buy my child's way into college, which I can't think of anything that would make me want to buy my child's way in, how would I feel if my parents had bought my way into college - thankfully they didn't because that would have been very hard to take or deal with had my parents done something like that when I was applying to college in the past.
Anyway, I digress, suffice it to say this is a thought-provoking and well-written story that causes you to reflect, think, and consider how you might feel or what you might do or what you might have done. How it would be different for the rich compared to the rest of us to even be able to consider let alone do something like this and how someone might have to reflect and decide on their feelings with if they were being complicit in the situation and where their moral compass was at in regards to this kind of situation as well.
If you've been intrigued by this college admissions scandal that was recently in the news, or like this author, or anything, this is a book not to be missed. It's cerebral and a bit deeper than you might think after getting into it but it's very interesting to read and think about what could have or might have happened the way she spins it with her characters experiencing the scandal in this story.

Admission is pulled right from the headlines and I loved every minute of it. Chloe wakes up to a knock on the door only to find the FBI ready to take her B list mother into custody. The novel flips back and forth between present day and months leading up to the public event. Chloe learns about her families role in a large college admission scandal and is not sure how much she really knew.

Issues of race/class are addressed throughout the book between Chloe and her best friend. Chloe learns of the difficulties her friend has had to endure even though she has a stronger admission application.

This is a great YA book that brings up issues in going on in high schools and families right now.