"Acceptance" is a satire of America's overachievers, a novel set over one year in the college application process, when students and parents surrender their evenings, their weekends, and their sanity to the race for admission. Maya, Taylor, and "AP" Harry (so named for all the advanced placement courses under his belt) are high school students in a Washington, D.C. suburb called Verona, each gunning for admission to the most prestigious colleges. Olivia is an overworked admissions officer, under siege from applications and every kind of desperate appeal. The application process threatens to overrun all of their lives, and "Acceptance" follows each character's struggle for their sanity against the relentless pressure of competition. Susan Coll is the author of the novels "karlmarx.com: A Love Story "and "Rockville Pike." She lives in Washington, D.C., and she and her husband are the parents of three college-aged children. It's spring break of junior year and the college admissions hysteria is setting in. "AP" Harry (so named for the unprecedented number of advanced placement courses he has taken) and his mother take a detour from his first choice, Harvard, to visit Yates, a liberal arts school in the Northeast that is enjoying a surge in popularity as a result of a statistical error that landed it on the top-fifty list of the "U.S. News & World Report "rankings. There, on Yates's dilapidated grounds, Harry runs into two of his classmates from Verona High, an elite public school in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There's Maya Kaluantharana, a gifted athlete whose mediocre SAT scores so alarm her family that they declare her learning disabled, and Taylor Rockefeller, Harry's brooding neighbor, who just wants a good look at the dormitory bathrooms.
With the human spirit of Tom Perrotta and the engaging honesty of Curtis Sittenfeld's "Prep," Susan Coll reveals the frantic world of college admissions, where kids recalibrate their GPAs based on daily quizzes, families relocate to enhance the chance for Ivy League slots, and everyone is looking for the formula for admittance. Meanwhile, Yates admissions officer Olivia Sheraton sifts through applications looking for something--anything--to distinguish one applicant from the next. For all, the price of admission requires compromise; for a few, the ordeal blossoms into an unexpected journey of discovery. "For any American family with college-bound children, Susan Coll's new novel, should be required reading. With this book, Coll has given her readers a witty and occasionally grave satire of the hysteria that surrounds a part of one's life that is supposed to be rewarding and enjoyable--the college application process . . . The text is not overreaching, and she treats the subject with exactly the tone and elevation it warrants--biting humor and Hornby-esque wit peppered with instances of warmness and seriousness. The book's ending perfectly exemplifies this terrific balance . . . The reader cannot help but chuckle with laughter at such an ending while also taking Coll's serious point that the acceptance game is not played just among the upper-middle class; it is a fierce competition that pervades all rungs of American society."--Mike Frechette, "The Midwest Book Review"
"Having just sent one kid off to college and with a second now preparing to apply, I had shivers of recognition again and again as I read "Acceptance." Fortunately, each shiver came along with its corresponding several smiles and chuckles. Susan Coll has written a dead-on satire that's also full of heart, which is a rare achievement."--Kurt Andersen, author of "Heyday
""I don't know why anyone would bother with those big, ugly college admissions manuals when a novel as smart and savvy as "Acceptance" can give us the same tips, with laughs. Susan Coll could make hell fun--and she does."--Marilyn Johnson, author of "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries"
"This book follows a handful of high school students throughout the year leading up to their graduation. It is a harrowing and hilarious story told from the points of view of the teens and their families as they navigate the maze leading to the holy grail of acceptance by a major university. Coll celebrates and skewers the people and the politics waged on both sides of the application process as the students pick their dream colleges and these institutions either pick them back or toss them onto the scrap heap of second- and third-tier safety schools. The characters evolve through their trials and learn about themselves and one another and accept the loss of one dream while embracing another. They include Harry, a scarily normal overachiever; Maya, the talented but seemingly least gifted of a wealthy Indian family; and Taylor, a girl teetering on the verge of self-abuse or self-discovery. These are teens who come from fairly affluent families and schools. They are treated with respect and love by the author, and readers will return the favor. YAs interested in the college selection process will find this book illuminating as they see in it their own fears acted out and resolved. It reads a bit like a Stephen King novel minus the horrific ending."--Will Marston, Berkeley Public Library, California, "School Library Journal
""Applying to and getting into college has turned into a deadly serious business for some students and their parents, but Susan Coll manages to make it funny and sometimes poignantly sad in her novel. The characters she describes--AP Harry, Taylor Rockefeller and Maya Kaluantharana, neighbors in an upscale Washington suburb--each react differently to the pressure exerted by their parents, teachers, counselors, peers and, most importantly, themselves as they live through April of their junior year to March of their senior year, by which time their fate is sealed along with their acceptance/deferral/rejection letters. Harry has lived his whole life with the g
Industry Reviews
"ACCEPTANCE is A+ entertainment--witty, clever and unpretentious. Excellent reading for all, but a MUST READ for anyone with teenage children." --Anita Shreve Hilarious and dismaying.--George F. Will "Newsweek " "Bristles with enough wit and ambition to earn honors." --Entertainment Weekly
"If your teen is among the thousands of high school seniors anxiously awaiting their college acceptance letters, Coll's witty satire of the admissions process will provide both of you with some much-needed comic relief." --Life magazine
"Hilarious and dismaying." --George F. Will, Newsweek
"Coll's tale of the harrowing days of college admission is spot-on." --People
"Skillfully executed . . . a winning social comedy . . . Captures the reasoned irrationality of teens . . . It will prove a winning combination for readers who are in the throes of the rejection letter hype." --USA Today
"Coll neatly captures the irony and humor of an era in which colleges peddle to junior high kids and Saturdays are all about SAT prep." --The Christian Science Monitor Bristles with enough wit and ambition to earn honors. "Entertainment Weekly"
If your teen is among the thousands of high school seniors anxiously awaiting their college acceptance letters, Coll's witty satire of the admissions process will provide both of you with some much-needed comic relief. "Life magazine"
Hilarious and dismaying. George F. Will, "Newsweek"
Coll's tale of the harrowing days of college admission is spot-on. "People"
Skillfully executed . . . a winning social comedy . . . Captures the reasoned irrationality of teens . . . It will prove a winning combination for readers who are in the throes of the rejection letter hype. "USA Today"
Coll neatly captures the irony and humor of an era in which colleges peddle to junior high kids and Saturdays are all about SAT prep. "The Christian Science Monitor"" "Bristles with enough wit and ambition to earn honors."--"Entertainment Weekly"
"If your teen is among the thousands of high school seniors anxiously awaiting their college acceptance letters, Coll's witty satire of the admissions process will provide both of you with some much-needed comic relief."--"Life "magazine
"Hilarious and dismaying."--George F. Will, "Newsweek"
"Coll's tale of the harrowing days of college admission is spot-on."--"People"
"Skillfully executed . . . a winning social comedy . . . Captures the reasoned irrationality of teens . . . It will prove a winning combination for readers who are in the throes of the rejection letter hype."--"USA"" Today"
"Coll neatly captures the irony and humor of an era in which colleges peddle to junior high kids and Saturdays are all about SAT prep.""--The Christian Science Monitor" "Bristles with enough wit and ambition to earn honors."--"Entertainment Weekly""If your teen is among the thousands of high school seniors anxiously awaiting their college acceptance letters, Coll's witty satire of the admissions process will provide both of you with some much-needed comic relief."--"Life "magazine
"Hilarious and dismaying."--George F. Will, "Newsweek"
"Coll's tale of the harrowing days of college admission is spot-on."--"People"
"Skillfully executed . . . a winning social comedy . . . Captures the reasoned irrationality of teens . . . It will prove a winning combination for readers who are in the throes of the rejection letter hype."--"USA"" Today"
"Coll neatly captures the irony and humor of an era in which colleges peddle to junior high kids and Saturdays are all about SAT prep.""--The Christian Science Monitor" "The New Yorker"
"This delightfully acerbic sendup of the college admissions process is set in a tony suburb of Washington, DC. A group of overachieving students (a "cluster of brainpower...packed so tight, it was like the inner loop of the Beltway at rush hour") fight for what seems an ever-narrowing pool of Ivy League spots (the only ones that matter), state-university scholarships (for the rare student who is financially challenged), and liberal-arts places ("safeties"). The view from the other side of the desk is provided by a character in the admissions department of a newly popular college in upstate New York, which is trawling for kids whose parents can pay for new campus facilities. Coll is alert to the comedy-- and the pathos-- of a system that leads high-school seniors to solicit recommendation letters from their pediatricians."
Newsweek
"Hilarious." - George Will
Life
"If your teen is among the thousands of high school seniors anxiously awaiting their college acceptance letters, Coll's witty satire of the admission process will provide both of you with some much-needed comic relief."
People
"Pay attention, students. This will be on the final. Name the smartest, funniest novel in the growing genre of 'app lit, ' books about the college admission process. Is it a) "Academy X"; b) "Jane Austen in Scarsdale"; or c) "Acceptance"? You chose c? Go to the head of the class. . . . Grade A." (Three and a half stars.)
"People STYLEWATCH"""
"Coll's tale of the harrowing days of college admission is spot-on. She pokes fun at obsessed teens--like her hero, AP ('AdvancedPlacement') Harry--and the whimsical process of getting in."
"Entertainment Weekly"""
"Coll's darkly comic novel details the pressure surrounding the college application process in a Washington, DC suburb. Following parents, teens, and university staff, Coll puts an Election-like spin on this highly competitive milieu: The teens are all way more mature than their adult counterparts. The standout is Taylor Rockefeller, a mail-stealing, self-mutilating senior saddled with a snobby, racist mother (at one point, she whines, 'There should be affirmative action for disadvantaged Rockefellers'). . . . "Acceptance "still bristles with enough wit and ambition to earn honors. B+"
"More"" "
"The mother of 'three college-aged and about-to-apply-to-college children, ' novelist Susan Coll has followed the motto 'Write what you know' with sympathy toward college applicants everywhere and a satirical eye toward the insanely competitive game. This tale is so instructive that high school guidance counselors should be handing it out."
USNews.com
""Acceptance" is a good read for students (or parents) completing or embarking on the college admissions journey, regardless of the book's jabs at the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings. And it's a good reminder that college applications are a serious, if overanalyzed, fact of life."
"Having just sent one kid off to college and with a second now preparing to apply, I had shivers of recognition again and again as I read "Acceptance," Fortunately, each shiver came along with its corresponding several smiles and chuckles. Susan Coll has written a dead-on satire that's also full of heart, which is a rareachievement." -- Kurt Andersen, author of "Heyday
""I don' t know why anyone would bother with those big, ugly college admissions manuals when a novel as smart and savvy as "Acceptance" can give us the same tips, with laughs. Susan Coll could make hell fun-- and she does." -- Marilyn Johnson, author of "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries""" "ACCEPTANCE is A+ entertainment--witty, clever and unpretentious. Excellent reading for all, but a MUST READ for anyone with teenage children." --Anita Shreve "Having just sent one kid off to college and with a second now preparing to apply, I had shivers of recognition again and again as I read "Acceptance," Fortunately, each shiver came along with its corresponding several smiles and chuckles. Susan Coll has written a dead-on satire that's also full of heart, which is a rare achievement." -- Kurt Andersen, author of "Heyday
""I don' t know why anyone would bother with those big, ugly college admissions manuals when a novel as smart and savvy as "Acceptance" can give us the same tips, with laughs. Susan Coll could make hell fun-- and she does." -- Marilyn Johnson, author of "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries""" "ACCEPTANCE is A+ entertainment--witty, clever and unpretentious. Excellent reading for all, but a MUST READ for anyone with teenage children." --Anita Shreve
