Luther Spoehr of Brown University writes in the Providence Journal:
Journalist Andrew Ferguson, senior editor at the Weekly Standard and author of Land of Lincoln, has written a perfect book: it makes you laugh and makes you think. His two-year crash course ends with his son entering college, but getting there is both all and none of the fun.
Ferguson’s tale is a case study of college mania, an affliction of the upper-middle class that, he admits, is a ritual born of affluence that he and his family are lucky to have. At the same time, the frenzied scramble to get into a selective college seems utterly irrational, not to mention absurd, sadistic, masochistic, and exhausting. As an anthropological participant/observer, Ferguson strikes just the right wry, skeptical, often hilarious, notes.
