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One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College
Simon & Schuster
March 2011
On Sale: March 1, 2011
240 pages
ISBN: 1439101213
EAN: 9781439101216
Hardcover
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Self-Help
The cutthroat competition to get into the perfect college
can drive students to the brink of madness and push their
parents over the edge—and bury them in an avalanche of books
that claim to hold the secret of success. Don’t worry: Crazy
U is not one of those books. It is instead a disarmingly
candid and hilariously subversive chronicle of the journey
that millions of parents and their children undertake each
year—a journey through the surreal rituals of college
admissions. It’s a rollicking ride from the man Christopher
Buckley has called “my all-time favorite writer.” Pummeled by peers, creeped out by counselors, and addled by
advice books, Andrew Ferguson has come to believe that a
single misstep could cost his son a shot at a happy and
fulfilling future. He feels the pressure to get it right
from the moment the first color brochures land in his
mailbox, sent from colleges soliciting customers as though
they were sailors come to port. First is a visit with the most sought-after, most
expensive—and surely most intimidating—private college
consultant in the nation. Then come the steps familiar to
parents and their college-bound children, seen through a
gimlet eye: a session with a distracted high school
counselor, preparations for the SAT and an immersion in its
mysteries, unhelpful help from essay coaches and admissions
directors, endless campus tours, and finally, as spring
arrives, the waiting, waiting, waiting for the envelope that
bears news of the future. Meanwhile, Ferguson passes on the tips he’s picked up during
their crash course. (Tip number 36: Don’t apply for
financial aid after midnight.) He provides a pocket history
of higher education in America, recounts the college ranking
wars, and casts light on the obscure and not-terribly-seemly
world of higher-education marketing. And he dares to raise
the question that no one (until now) has been able to
answer: Why on earth does it all cost so much? Along the
way, something unexpected begins to happen: a new
relationship grows between father and son, built from humor,
loyalty, and (yes) more than a little shared anxiety. For
all its tips and trials, Crazy U is also a story about
family. It turns out that the quiet boy who pretends not to
be worried about college has lots to teach his father—about
what matters in life, about trusting your instincts, about
finding your own way. In launching his son into the world.
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