Early Decision: A Novel Paperback - 2014

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.