A year ago, if somebody had told me that I would become a specialist in college angst AND a well-known internet critic of Ithaca hotels, I wouldn't have believed it.  

But I would have believed that my Cerebral Jock son, who seemed more interested in following the March Madness basketball games than hearing about a capella groups on our eight-state college tour, would still be more interested in basketball than perusing the course catalog at his dream ED school.

In honor of this blog's anniversary, the Neurotic Parent Institute is proud to announce the result of a preliminary research study: This year, in fact, may NOT have been the most difficult year to get into college in the history of the world.

I hereby present preliminary anectodal evidence – some the acceptances received so far by some of CJ's friends, classmates and teammates who have been mentioned in this blog (Briliant Surfer, Compulsive Texter, Computer Genius…plus others whom I have not mentioned):

Columbia (early decision); Yale (early action); Stanford (early action); Duke (early decision), Wash U St. Louis; Rice (almost full ride); Michigan; UCSB (volleyball); Dartmouth (crew); Penn (early decision); Middlebury (early decision); Swarthmore (tennis); Wisconsin; Kenyon ($$); Lewis & Clark; Carleton; USC (film); USC (music); NYU (theater): NYU (film); Syracuse (business); Indiana; UCLA; Wesleyan (early decision and "early write"); UCLA; UCSD; UCSC; Colorado College; U of Colorado; Bucknell ($$); Tulane ($$); Emerson (acting); Barnard; Sarah Lawrence; MIT (early action).

I have heard that only five members of CJ's class have not yet received any acceptances…And those are top students who will have an embarrassment of riches to select from.  Plus, the above list does not include the decisions of many of the early-adverse Ivies (Inconveniently they are waiting until I'm in the jungle to announce those). 

The bottom line: Why were we so neurotic?  Everybody is getting in somewhere. 

Perhaps it is because we have conveniently experienced an economic meltdown which has helped those willing/able to pay full tuition.

Or perhaps it is because the colleges really want our nice, bright students, even though they have only one summer of genome research.