Gatecrashers

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Introducing: Gatecrashers

What topic is more controversial, sensational, and endlessly captivating than college admissions? It’s a billion-dollar industry. It sends celebrities to jail. The Supreme Court is weighing in on who gets in and why. We might think we have read all there is to read on the issue, and heard all there is to hear. But if you want to understand everything that’s going on with college admissions today—not just the battles over diversity, but the very existence of college applications, the essays and interviews and standardized tests—you have to look at the first group that tried to diversify elite schools. You have to look at the Jews. Gatecrashers, an 8-part podcast series launching Sept. 13, 2022, tells the story of how Jews fought for acceptance at elite schools, and how the Jewish experience in the Ivy League shaped American higher education, and shaped America at large.

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  Columbia and Its Forgotten Jewish Campus

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  Princeton and the ‘Dirty Bicker’ of 1958

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  Dartmouth and the Jews who Loved it

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  Yale and the Slow Death of Quotas

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  Brown University and Mrs. Smith’s Kosher Kitchen

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  Cornell and its Off-Campus, Off-Kilter Jewish Commune

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  Penn and the Great Sorority Coup of 1987

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  Harvard and the End of the Jewish Ivy League

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  Introducing: Covering Their Tracks

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  Introducing Dreyfus: A Very Modern Affair