Source: Malcolm Gladwell, "Getting In," The New Yorker / Karabel, The Chosen / Shulman & Bowen, The Game of Life
Tags: best-students model, best-graduates model, Hunter College Elementary, LSAT limitations, athlete admissions, legacy admissions, Ivy League as luxury brand, Levi Jackson, Shulman and Bowen, customer segmentation, brand management in education
Gladwell contrasts two admissions philosophies: best-students (admit the highest scorers) and best-graduates (admit those who will achieve most after college). He argues the Ivy League's best-graduates approach, though born from discriminatory motives, may actually produce better long-term outcomes than pure academic selection. He closes by reframing elite universities as luxury brands whose admissions offices function as brand managers, curating an "aesthetic experience" of belonging to an elite.
Best-students model
Admissions based on who will perform best academically during their time in school. Used by France's École Normale Supérieure, Japan's University of Tokyo, and most elite law schools (via LSAT scores). Hunter College Elementary School in New York was a pure example: score in the top fifty on an exam, and you get in.
Best-graduates model
Admissions based on who will achieve the most after leaving the institution. The Ivy League's stated rationale for evaluating character, leadership potential, and extracurriculars alongside academics. Wilbur Bender argued that "above a reasonably good level of mental ability ... the only thing that matters in terms of future impact on, or contribution to, society is the degree of personal inner force an individual has."
Hunter College Elementary School study ("Genius Revisited," 1993)
Research by Subotnik, Kassan, Summers, and Wasser surveying Hunter alumni (1948-1960 cohorts) who had an average IQ of 157. Despite receiving one of the finest classroom experiences in the world, these graduates were "successful and fairly content" but produced "no superstars ... and only one or two familiar names." The study concluded that being a smart child is a poor predictor of later-life distinction; non-intellective factors like motivation and social skills matter more.
Lawyering competencies (Zedeck and Shultz)
Research funded by the Law School Admission Council identifying twenty-six competencies needed for effective lawyering, including practical judgment, passion, engagement, negotiation skills, and stress management. The LSAT captures only a handful of these. A law school selecting the best future lawyers would need a very different process from one selecting the best law students.
Legacy admissions ("legacies")
Preferential admission of children of alumni. At Harvard between 1985 and 1992, legacies were admitted at more than twice the rate of non-athlete, non-legacy applicants, despite scoring lower on virtually every one of Harvard's rating scales.
Recruited athlete advantage
Athletes at selective universities have acceptance rates well over twice those of other applicants, despite SAT scores averaging more than 100 points lower. Shulman and Bowen documented a large and growing admissions preference for athletes, along with lower GPAs and class rankings and a tendency to self-segregate into a separate "athletic culture."
Customer segmentation (j1, j2, j3)
Karabel's term for Harvard's 1920s practice of scouring records and tagging suspected Jewish students as j1 ("conclusively Jewish"), j2 ("preponderance of evidence"), or j3 ("possibility"). Gladwell draws the analogy to brand management's customer segmentation.
Symbolic capital vs economic capital
During the Second World War, Yale continued to turn down qualified Jewish applicants even as enrolment and revenues plummeted. Karabel frames this as Yale judging its symbolic capital (prestige, identity) to be more valuable than its economic capital (tuition revenue). No good brand manager sacrifices long-term reputation for short-term gain.
Hunter College Elementary School represents the purest form of best-students selection: a single exam, top-fifty cutoff, no subjective criteria.
The 1993 follow-up study found that this group of extremely high-IQ children grew into capable, contented adults, but not into leaders or superstars.
The researchers concluded that "non-intellective" factors, motivation, social skills, drive, matter more for later-life distinction than raw academic ability.
Gladwell uses this to argue that Harvard was right (for the wrong reasons) to look beyond test scores: if your goal is to produce graduates who shape the world, selecting only on academic brilliance does not get you there.
Most elite law schools follow a best-students model built on LSAT scores.
Zedeck and Shultz's research identified twenty-six competencies that effective lawyers need. The LSAT picks up only a handful.
A law school aiming to produce the best lawyers, not just the best law students, would need a fundamentally different, more subjective admissions process.
Gladwell's broader point: subjectivity in admissions is not inherently bad. It can also be the mechanism through which institutions pursue socially valuable outcomes that pure metrics cannot identify.
Levi Jackson became the first Black captain of the Yale football team, graduating in 1950.
He was hugely popular on campus, became a top Ford executive, and helped persuade the company to hire thousands of African-Americans after the 1967 riots.
Jackson himself noted the irony: "If my name had been reversed, I never would have made it" (a reference to Skull and Bones).
The same discretionary admissions system once used to exclude Jews was eventually used to include people like Jackson. The tool is neutral; the intentions behind it are what matter.
Shulman and Bowen (2001, The Game of Life) documented that recruited athletes at selective universities have markedly lower GPAs, SATs, and class rankings than their peers, and tend to cluster in a separate "athletic culture."
Their conclusion: the athletic preference is shameful.
Yet their own data showed that male athletes, despite lower scores and often lower socioeconomic backgrounds, went on to out-earn their peers significantly.
Athletes disproportionately entered high-paying financial services, where traits like drive, energy, competitiveness, stamina, and teamwork, honed through sport, translated directly into career success.
Gladwell argues this finding actually vindicates the Ivy League's best-graduates philosophy: admitting athletes is not a perversion of the system but a logical extension of it. The Ivy League wants graduates who succeed, and athletes do.
Gladwell's closing argument reframes the entire admissions enterprise as brand management.
Admissions directors are not neutral arbiters of merit. They curate an identity. Their job is to assemble a class that sustains the institution's prestige, fundraising capacity, and social cachet.
Legacy preferences are, in brand terms, customer-loyalty programmes. Harvard wants generous alumni, so it rewards alumni families. The resulting donations fund the resources that attract future applicants. It is a self-reinforcing cycle.
The j1/j2/j3 coding of Jewish students in the 1920s was, in marketing terms, customer segmentation.
Yale's decision to keep rejecting qualified Jewish applicants during wartime, even as revenue fell, was a calculation that symbolic capital mattered more than economic capital.
When Harvard was accused in the 1980s of maintaining a secret quota on Asian admissions, its defence was that, after adjusting for legacy and athlete preferences, Asians were not being discriminated against. Gladwell detects Harvard's exasperation at even being questioned: "If Harvard had too many Asians, it wouldn't be Harvard."
The article's final framing: elite schools are "an exquisitely constructed fantasy of what it means to belong to an élite," and they have always been deliberate about what must be done to maintain that fantasy.
⚠️ The best-students vs best-graduates distinction is central to the essay's argument. Be prepared to define both, give examples (Hunter College vs Harvard; LSAT-based law schools vs hypothetical competency-based ones), and evaluate Gladwell's claim that the best-graduates model, despite its origins, may produce better outcomes.
⚠️ The Levi Jackson example is Gladwell's strongest case for subjective admissions: the same mechanism that once excluded can also include. This is the essay's key counterweight to the discriminatory-origins narrative.
⚠️ Shulman and Bowen's athlete data is presented as an ironic own-goal. They set out to condemn athletic preferences but their earnings data supports the Ivy League's best-graduates logic. This is a frequent exam topic because it demonstrates how empirical findings can undercut the researcher's own argument.
⚠️ The luxury-brand framing is Gladwell's most provocative move. He is not saying it is morally right; he is saying it accurately describes how the system works. Exam answers should distinguish between Gladwell's descriptive claim (this is what the Ivies do) and the normative question (is this what they should do).
Q: What did the Hunter College Elementary School study reveal about the relationship between childhood IQ and later-life achievement?
A: Alumni with an average IQ of 157 turned out to be successful and content, but produced virtually no superstars or widely recognised figures. The researchers concluded that "non-intellective" factors such as motivation and social skills are better predictors of distinction than raw academic ability.
Q: How does Gladwell use the Levi Jackson example to complicate the narrative about subjective admissions?
A: Jackson, the first Black captain of Yale's football team, was admitted through the same discretionary system that had been used to exclude Jews. Gladwell argues this shows that subjectivity in admissions is a tool, not inherently discriminatory. The same mechanism that enabled exclusion later enabled inclusion and produced a graduate who made significant social contributions.
Q: Why does Gladwell describe the Ivy League as a luxury brand, and what specific admissions practices support the analogy?
A: The Ivy League curates its student body to sustain prestige and social cachet, the way a luxury brand curates its customer base. Supporting practices include legacy preferences (customer loyalty), the j1/j2/j3 coding of Jewish students (customer segmentation), Yale's wartime rejection of qualified Jewish applicants to protect reputation (symbolic capital over economic capital), and the 1980s defence of Asian admissions policies (brand identity maintenance).
Q: Shulman and Bowen intended to criticise the Ivy League's preference for athletes. How did their own data undercut that argument?
A: Their data showed that male athletes, despite lower SATs, GPAs, and class rankings, went on to significantly out-earn their non-athlete peers, particularly in financial services. The traits that made them strong athletes, such as drive, energy, competitiveness, and teamwork, transferred directly to career success. This outcome is consistent with the Ivy League's best-graduates philosophy, the very system Shulman and Bowen were criticising.
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