The Neurotic Parent Institute has inadvertantly started a one-stop college planning service.  We are officially into the "lull period", during which high school seniors wait to find out who will accept them – or change their deferred status.  But things are not slow here – Within the last few weeks I have received desperate phone calls from friends and acquaintances who believe that because CJ was accepted early to his dream school, I have to power to come up with plans and solutions for their seniors and juniors.

Here are some of the services I have dutifully performed:

- Critiqued an essay on December 30th (1 day before deadline)

- Planned a junior's college trip to "jocky" schools using Delta miles.

- Presented a brief comparison all of the SAT tutors in SoCal.

- Analyzed emails from UC Berkeley about scholarships to determine if they were sent out to everyone, or just a select few.

- Evaluated summer programs to decide whether they would be viewed as "bogus" by college reps; came up with suggested spin of how to position bogus program on student's resume.

- Convinced dozens of people to add Emory to their students' lists after CJ received a live call from a real person on his cell from Emory on December 30th begging him to apply. 

- Theorized why highly-qualified students were deferred from Wesleyan, Yale and Williams; created strategies and marketing plans to get these kids accepted.

- Agreed to lend my embarrassingly-large library of Michele Hernandez books to the mom of CJ's brilliant and talented goalie friend.

- Extolled the virtues of my two new favorite off-the-radar schools, based on their fabulous mailings: Rice and Kenyon.  Okay, they are both in sucky locations, but you can't have everything.

The best part of the Neurotic Parent college planning services is that although they may not be accurate or fruitful, at least they are free.  Just catch me at a soccer game and ask me about "Tufts Syndrome."