Getting In: Inside the College Admissions Process.

• Author: Lemann, Nicholas

This book sets off a psycho-physiological phenomenon called "reassurance-induced terror," which can be defined roughly as the feeling you get when the pilot of the plane you're riding in comes on the public address system to say that there's nothing to worry about. Both the author, Bill Paul, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and his main character, Fred Hargadon, the dean of admissions at Princeton, are obviously kind-hearted, decent, dedicated men who want only the best for America's adolescents. But Getting In inexorably knots the stomach and fevers the brow. Although the college application process is 20 years in the past for me and 10 years in the future for my children, perhaps it's like military combat: Once experienced, the terror can return in full force at any time with the right stimulus, which Getting In definitely is. It made me so overwhelmingly anxious that I had to put it down every few pages and take a few deep breaths.

The reason is that the message the book sends out to its intended audience of college applicants and their parents can be boiled down to the following syllogism:

1) Nothing is more determinant of the life-course than being admitted (or not!) to an elite college during the senior year of high school. However:

2) No individual who is not a nationally acclaimed genius has much meaningful chance of gaining this incalculable opportunity. But:

3) Don't obsess about it - just be yourself!

For example, hook up the galvanic skin-response meter and then read this passage: "Here, then, is the Princeton candidate's mission impossible: Take five or six solid courses a semester during sophomore and junior years, get A's in all or nearly all of them, then back up that virtuoso classroom performance with half a dozen test scores over 700. Anything less, and the candidate will probably be graded no higher than a two, which, while very good, does not separate that candidate from the pack (About fifty-five per cent of applicants are either academic twos or threes)."

Not that being an "academic one" will get you into Princeton. You still have your "nonacademic achievement rating" to worry about:

"As for the nonacademic achievement rating, Hargadon says that to get a one, a candidate has to have done something truly exceptional, such as swimming in the Olympics, performing on the violin at Carnegie Hall, or selling a zillion Girl Scout cookies and speaking to major U.S. corporations about salesmanship. Asked for other kinds of accomplishments that would make a candidate a nonacademic one, [Hargadon] replies, `They hold a patent. That would be a one. They've published a book. That would be a one.'"

If you sold only a million Girl Scout cookies and then spoke to...