Today almost everyone seems to assume that the critical moment in young people’s lives is finding out which colleges have accepted them. Winning admission to an elite school is imagined to be a golden passport to success; for bright students, failing to do so is seen as a major life setback. As a result, the fixation on getting into a super-selective college or university has never been greater. Parents’ expectations that their children will attend top schools have “risen substantially” in the past decade, says Jim Conroy, the head of college counseling at New Trier High School, in Winnetka, Illinois. He adds, “Parents regularly tell me, ‘I want whatever is highest-ranked.'” Shirley Levin, of Rockville, Maryland, who has worked as a college-admissions consultant for twenty-three years, concurs: “Never have stress levels for high school students been so high about where they get in, or about the idea that if you don’t get into a glamour college, your life is somehow ruined.”