Lacy Crawford. Early Decision. New York: Morrow, 2014. Print.

Every parent of a high school student who is thinking of going to college should read Early Decision. Perhaps it is a bit of an antidote to What High Schools Don’t Tell You. I also would recommend it to high school guidance counselors and English teachers who are tasked with assigning or reading student college application essays.

Crawford worked as a college admission consultant who helped clients whose parents could afford her services get into the better colleges. The main character of Early Decision is a twenty-seven year old Princeton grad who is working in the same field. Her main task is helping the applicants polish the admission essays that the more competitive colleges require. The students, of course, are responsible themselves for their grades or their extracurriculars.

SAT or ACT tutoring is separate. Anne Arlington, our protagonist, does that on Saturdays to a group of students from an inferior Chicago public school.

The essays are a chance for students to reveal themselves and help them make a good match. Of course, with many of the more elitist parents, a good match means not what would be best for their child but what has the most prestige.

The book mostly traces the progress of five high school seniors Anne is helping. Four are her clients, two boys and two girls, and one is a girl from the inner city school who got a 34 on the ACT. (36 is a perfect score).

Alexis is an extremely bright and articulate girl whose parents, Anne suspects, may not have gone to college. The competitive college thing is new to them, but Alexis has everything going for her. She gets into every college she applies to. Like the majority in her situation, though she finds good things about all of them, she cannot turn down Harvard. She will excel there.

Sadie is a legacy. Her father is a trustee of Duke, and, frankly, she is a decent enough student that she is an automatic acceptance there. But both Anne and her parents want her to understand that she would be qualified without her father’s connection.

With Sadie, though, we see a difficulty that will be multiplied upon the boys. Her parents supervise her essay so that is sounds like what they think will sound good rather than what Sadie really wants to express.

At one point Sadie’s father offers Anne a job at his law firm as a paralegal. She is flattered. She would likely be making more money. But she also feels like the offer is more like a proposition than a proposal.

Some of the book’s humor comes from the character of Sadie’s mother. No, she does not have a sense of humor—hardly anyone does when it comes to getting their kids into college. Her mother is a motivational guru like Oprah or Tim Robbins. She thinks she understands everyone, especially other women, but it is clear that she has never attempted to understand her daughter.

Sadie’s essay acknowledges that she is privileged, and her parents do not like her saying that, even though it is obvious to the most casual observer. Still, Sadie manages to pull off an engaging and effective essay. Yes, she does go to daddy’s alma mater, but college is a place where she can become her own person.

It is much less straightforward for the boys in the novel.

College was four years to spend looking for something that was just right. It was a great idea and a fine time to live it. But such an opportunity presupposed imagination, and fathers had always been the gatekeepers of their sons’ dreams. (243)

William wants to go to Vassar, but his father still thinks of it as a girls’ school. William is able to compromise somewhat and go to Penn. His college choice does not change his overall career arc. Vassar and Penn are comparable in status and academics. Penn is not that much farther from New York City than Vassar. He still ends up in the City pursuing an acting career. Anne, nevertheless, is able to help his essay draw out what is important to him and give him some direction.

The saddest of her clients is Hunter. He loves the outdoors. His essay on the mustangs he observed one summer in Montana is a winner. But his father squelches the essay and most of Hunter’s desires. While he does take a year off before college to work out west as a Park Service intern, he ends up drifting through a couple of different colleges and gets a mergers and acquisitions job in a big city. That certainly is a symbol as well as a tragedy for this young man.

The wrap-up is a somewhat delicate observation that could easily become a rant about how parents project themselves on their kids. That is nothing new, but Anne’s (or Lacy’s) honesty and directness is refreshing. The sad thing is that most sons want to please their fathers, but their fathers also have to understand their sons.

The student essays scattered through Early Decision is a bonus. We see how the four students’ essays  progress from unstructured and vague (except for Alexis’s) to something pointed and even exciting. And in the case of Hunter, alas, back again. Yes, Crawford was an English major at Princeton, but she does demonstrate what a good essay can look like. That is why I would recommend this book for high school counselors and English teachers.

There are a couple of subplots through the story concerning Anne’s personal life. She has an ongoing conflict with a neighbor in her apartment building. The climax to this  conflict is a surprise—though, looking back, we can see how things fit together.

Anne also has an up and down relationship with her actor boyfriend of five years. Some of the details of that relationship make me reluctant to recommend it to high school students themselves. As the kids say, TMI, too much information. So students, give the book to your parents and guidance counselors. If they say it is OK for you to read, go ahead.

Besides the essay examples, there are many useful quotations about the college admissions process. I quoted one above. She seems to mostly agree with the recent article in New Republic that college has reverted to what it was a century ago, a fast track for the children of the elite. Anne’s hilarious but serious mental rating of the top colleges on pages 30 and 31 (paperback edition) stands out. Even if you do not read the whole book, read those pages.

There are also some little humorous tidbits for those who know things about some of the different colleges and for those who know about Chicago. For example, only a Princeton student or graduate would name a goldfish Old Nassau. I am sure a missed a few such things about the Windy City.

Early Decision also gives an honest if slightly cynical view of America’s elite. They themselves tend to be cynical. Some like Alexis and her parents are “good people.” Sadie is a sweetheart in spite of her high-powered parents. Still, when Anne witnesses one the partners of the law firm groping one of the paralegals, she observes:

What she’d seen wasn’t lust; it was avarice. It was entitled. (272)

Droit du seigneur.

Yes, I recall seeing the same attitude in a few college professors, a few actors in my brush with the theater, and most of us have remarked on it in politicians.

Plus ça change…