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    Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy
    Unavailable
    Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy
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    Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy
    Ebook379 pages6 hours

    Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy

    By Lacy Crawford

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “...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

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateAug 27, 2013
    ISBN9780062240705
    Author

    Lacy Crawford

    Before she found the way to tell her own story in the memoir Notes on a Silencing, Lacy Crawford spent years helping other high schoolers tell theirs in her debut novel Early Decision, inspired by her work. For fifteen years, Crawford served as a highly discreet independent college admissions counselor to the children of powerful clients in cities such as New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. Her ""day jobs"" included serving as senior editor of Narrative magazine and director of the Burberry Foundation. Educated at Princeton and the University of Chicago, Crawford lives in California with her husband and two children.

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    Reviews for Early Decision

    3.5/5

    40 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Author Lacy Crawford has been a private college application counselor for 15 years. Her experiences help write the protagonist Anne, as well as the kids Anne is helping through the college application process. Anne officially helps with essays and SAT prep, but her primary value to the parents is as someone they can freak out to and who can help communicate with their kids. Anne herself sees her role as helping their children achieve independence, using the essay writing to help them find their own voice. Given her highly unpleasant boyfriend, Anne could use some of that independence herself.


      When I agreed to review this book, I was under the impression it was a non-fiction documentary kind of deal. Re-reading the stock description, I still don’t feel it’s clear that this is actually a fictional account. That in a nutshell is the one problem I had with this book – it’s not clear how fictional it is. There is a small caveat at the beginning to prevent schools complaining about how they’re portrayed, but I think a description of how much the students’ situations were drawn from real experiences was also necessary. That said…

      The author’s writing style was fantastic. She included just enough mundane details in her descriptions to make the setting feel real without interfering with the fast-paced plot. She also had an almost Austenesque ability to convey that something is ridiculous or objectionable without directly saying so. At first I wasn’t sure about her choice to include the students’ essays, especially since the poorly written ones were painful to read. As essay drafts evolved with the characters though, I quickly became convinced of their usefulness for showing character development.

      Although it’s impossible to know how much of this story was true, the characters were so well written that I would believe (almost) all of it. Each character acted self-consistently with what we know of their personality and motivations. All had their flaws, but not all were unlikeable. Our protagonist, for example, lacks self-confidence and sometimes seems manipulative. She is also always trying to do the right thing for the students she’s helping though and that was enough to make me like her anyway. Like out protagonist, the ending was likeable but not too likeable to be believable. It was neither so happy it felt like fiction nor so unhappy it felt unsatisfying. So this book wasn’t at all what I expected, but it delivered a relatable, moving story which I really enjoyed.

      This review first published on Doing Dewey.
    • 4/5
      Even almost 10 years after my child went off to college, I remain fascinated by the whole miserable process and always wished I could be a fly on the Admissions Office wall. Thanks to Lacy Crawford, I am. The concept of college advisors to the 1% is repugnant, but in this novel the kids are pretty marvelous despite their privilege. The counselor in question is a confused Princeton grad, grad school dropout stuck with confusing choices and a bad boyfriend. Not undying literature, but a very strong indictment of helicopter parents, with the bonus of a nicely placed small mystery. Very enjoyable especially for parents who have been there stressfully and done that badly. And those of us who made it through, sadder and wiser, kids and parents, to the other side where the loans are green and the jobs are scarce.
    • 4/5
      I have two children in high school. That means that college is coming like a freight train. This is a terrifying prospect. Do they want to go to college? Where do they want to go? Do they have the grades and scores to get into their first choice? Their second choice? Any choice? And what about all the variables that are completely unknowable? What if the admissions office doesn't want or need more of what my children are offering in the year in which they will apply? Thick letter or thin? Jubilation or broken heart? I still vividly remember the agony and anticipation of my own college search. I don't know if I can survive going through it with my kids. And quite honestly, Lacy Crawford's novel, Early Decision, makes me just a touch more panicky. Crawford was an independent college admissions counselor so she knows whereof she speaks in this novel about several different college seniors and their quest to get into the college on which they and their parents have their hearts set. Following five students on their college application journey, the novel is told from the perspective of Anne, a private admissions counselor who has seen it all and has the added cache of having attended an Ivy League school herself. She's in her late twenties and still not certain of what she wants to do with her own life but she knows how to shepherd students through the application and essay writing process to get them into the big name schools. She mainly works for overly involved, wealthy parents who often see the college their children go to as another status symbol. This college season Anne is working with Sadie, who doesn't have the grades for Duke but whose father is a trustee and whose mother is a nationally known life coach so she's a slam dunk for getting in; Hunter, whose mother has been driving and directing his life since he was small, never allowing him to just be a kid; Alexis, who can write her own ticket because she is the whole package but whose parents still want to micromanage things; William, a meticulous and buttoned up boy who secretly has far different dreams for his future than his parents do; and Cristina, a first generation immigrant who has the brains it takes to make it out of poverty if she can just catch a break and a scholarship with a college admissions office. As Anne works with each of the students, helping them find their spark and passion, finessing their essays, deciding which college to shoot for, and oftentimes placating their parents even as she runs interference for the kids, she is facing upheavals in her own life. Her actor boyfriend has moved from Chicago to LA without her. She's not certain how many more seasons of college admissions she can take, privy to the unhappiness and problems of these accessory kids and their fierce parents. And she feels as if she has sold her soul to the devil, playing fast and loose with Cristina's future in an effort to raise her up despite knowing that this disadvantaged child deserves the chance as much if not more so than the other four whose parents are paying her well to make their dreams come true. Told through Anne's observations, emails with her students, and their evolving personal essays, the novel is very immediate and visceral. The desperation of the parents comes through loud and clear, as does their inability to let their children find their own future, the one right for them. And just as in real life, the students themselves run the gamut from involved and caring to passive riders on their parents' trains. Each of the kids, smack in a stressful and seminal time in life, changes and grows in some way. If nothing else, they discover the things that bring them joy and how to match that up with what they envision for college. Some of the students find the strength of character to push to make the process theirs and to start living their own lives while others, despite the tantalizing glimpse of what could be, remain trapped in a vision not of their own making. Anne herself also faces her own decisions about her future during this year, trying to remember and tap into her own passion even as she teases out the students'. The novel's subtitle Based on a True Frenzy is completely accurate. And the major feeling I'm left with towards the college application process is a nerve-wracking despair, which tells me that Crawford has done a fantastic job of capturing all the conflicting feelings about wanting to launch my babies into the world and wanting to keep them little. She's really drawn realistic teenagers and I have to hope that she hasn't caught me as a parent in her portrayal of the parents in the book! Anyone facing the competitive world of college admissions soon should be lining up to read this book and those who aren't facing it yet should read it too, if only to decide whether their hearts can handle the stress of launching a child into the world.
    • 4/5
      As a parent who has gone through the college application process with my child, I loved seeing that there are even more anxiety ridden people than myself in this world! A really great, funny, intense novelization of applying to college.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to like this book - a novelized account of an independent college admissions counselor. But it was so boring - nothing happened. Annie makes her living coaching rich kids on how to write the perfect college application essay. The kids she helps are interchangeable with short back stories. As a result, their actions often seem contrived. Her own relationships are typical chick lit - mean neighbor, afraid to commit boyfriend. There's even the tell it to you straight friend. In all fairness, I stopped halfway through so maybe some plot twist was just waiting. Probably not though.I wouldn't bother BUT it is getting a ton of positive reviews.
    • 4/5
      This book will be especially interesting if you have ties to higher education -- and especially an interest in applying to college, as well as the struggles of wealthy baby boomer parents attempting to control and will the fate of their children. Story drags in parts, and some others are way over the top, but an enjoyable read with some interesting points to ponder.