Product Description
by Lacy Crawford (Author)
"...part Gossip Girl, part Dead Poets Society, and entirely addictive! A brilliant, satirical peek at the families of privilege behind the Ivy Curtain, this book made me laugh out loud." --Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy
In the decades before she was able to tell her own story, Lacy Crawford (author of Notes on a Silencing) worked with high school seniors trying to learn to tell theirs in the 15 years she spent as a highly sought-after private college counselor. The college essay could be a terribly nerve-wracking assignment--or, as Crawford saw it, an opportunity for a young person to set their sights on a future of their own--as Crawford illuminates in her debut novel Early Decision.
Working one-on-one with helicopter parents and burned-out kids, Anne "the application whisperer" can make Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford a reality--assuming, of course, that's what a student wants. Early Decision follows five students over one autumn as Anne helps them craft their essays, cram for the SATs, and perfect the Common Application, though their larger task might be balancing their parents' hopes against their own developing dreams.
It seems their entire future is on the line--and it is. Though not because of the Ivy League. It's because the process, warped as it is by money, connections, competition, and parental mania, threatens to crush their independence just as adulthood begins.
With wit and heart, Early Decision sends up the secrets of the college admissions race and celebrates the adolescents forced to run its gauntlet.
"I nearly cried with laughter over how true to my experience this book is. Lacy Crawford is spot-on in her portrayal of the anxiety, hilarity, and pathos inherent to the college application process." --Anonymous, SAT Tutor, Veritas
Front Jacket
A delightful and salacious novel about the frightful world of high school, SATs, the college essay, and the Common Application--and how getting in is getting in the way of growing up
Anne Arlington is twenty-seven, single, and in demand: she is the independent college whisperer whose name is passed from parent to parent like a winning lottery ticket, the only tutor who can make a difference with the Ivy League.
Early Decision follows one application season and the five students Anne guides to their fates: Hunter, the athletic boy who never quite hits his potential, a kind, heavily defended kid who drives his mother mad; Sadie, an heiress who is perfectly controlled but at the expense of her own heart; William, whose intelligence permits him to dodge his father's cruel conservatism but can't solve the problem of loneliness; Alexis, a blazing overachiever whose midwestern parents have never heard of a tiger mom; and Cristina, who could write her ticket out of her enormous, failing high school, if only she knew how.
Meanwhile, Anne needs a little coaching herself, having learned that even the best college does not teach a person how to make a life.
In this engrossing, intelligent novel, Lacy Crawford delivers an explosive insider's guide to the secrets of college admissions at the highest levels. It's also a deft commentary on modern parenting and how the scramble for Harvard is shaping a generation. Told in part through the students' essays, this unique and witty book is so closely observed that it has been mistaken for a memoir or a how-to guide. A wise and deeply felt story, Early Decision reveals how getting in is getting in the way of growing up.
--Publishers WeeklyBack Jacket
A delightful and salacious novel about the frightful world of high school, SATs, the college essay, and the Common Application--and how getting in is getting in the way of growing up
Anne Arlington is twenty-seven, single, and in demand: she is the independent "college whisperer" whose name is passed from parent to parent like a winning lottery ticket, the only tutor who can make a difference with the Ivy League.
Early Decision follows one application season and the five students Anne guides to their fates: Hunter, the athletic boy who never quite hits his potential, a kind, heavily defended kid who drives his mother mad; Sadie, an heiress who is perfectly controlled but at the expense of her own heart; William, whose intelligence permits him to dodge his father's cruel conservatism but can't solve the problem of loneliness; Alexis, a blazing overachiever whose midwestern parents have never heard of a tiger mom; and Cristina, who could write her ticket out of her enormous, failing high school, if only she knew how.
Meanwhile, Anne needs a little coaching herself, having learned that even the best college does not teach a person how to make a life.
In this engrossing, intelligent novel, Lacy Crawford delivers an explosive insider's guide to the secrets of college admissions at the highest levels. It's also a deft commentary on modern parenting and how the scramble for Harvard is shaping a generation. Told in part through the students' essays, this unique and witty book is so closely observed that it has been mistaken for a memoir or a how-to guide. A wise and deeply felt story, Early Decision reveals how getting in is getting in the way of growing up.
