The Harvard Lampoon's Guide to College Admissions: The Comprehensive, Authoritative, and Utterly Useless Source for Where to Go and How to Get in

PASS THIS QUICK TEST AND YOU CAN BUY THIS BOOK.

1. This book will make you ___.

(a) cooler

(b) sexier

(c) more likely to get into college

(d) poorer.

2. After reading this book you will receive a ___ on the SATs.

(a) B+

(b) notice informing you of your scores

(c) 88,000

(d) sneaking suspicion that you'll do pretty well.

3. When your friends see you with this book, they will exclaim:

(a) "Nice shirt!"

(b) "Why are you reading that book upside down?"

(c) "I want to marry you and bear your children (because you are reading that book)".

(d) "How did you get in here? I'm going to call the police if you don't leave".

4. While writing this book, the editors:

(a) worked collaboratively to foster an open, caring environment

(b) worked collaboratively to foster an openly spiteful environment

(c) kicked a puppy

(d) a and c.

5. Do you have $12.95?

If you answered "yes" to question 5, THE HARVARD LAMPOON'S GUIDE TO COLLEGE ADMISSIONS is for you.

Profusely sweating (and illustrated), only THE HARVARD LAMPOON'S "TM" GUIDE TO COLLEGE ADMISSIONS gives you:
-- SAT Tips for college-bound fetuses
-- Recommendation letters from teachers who hate you
-- Tips on where to go, from the Colorado School of Mining Technology to Bikini College to Harvard (Why would anyone not go to Bikini College?)
-- Dorm room pets -- goldfish or soul-less zombie manservant? (The answer may surprise you!)
-- Advice on choosing a brand of fabric softener, a major, and a favorite lite FM radio station that makes you a winner...AND NOT MUCH MORE!

Comparison shopping for colleges is serious business for teenagers and parents, but the editors of the Harvard Lampoon think that makes it fair game for satire. Drawing on contemporary culture; literature, both classic and popular; and archetypal college traditions, they've created a raucous parody modeled on a typical new-student college guidebook. Beginning even before the beginning, they offer "Advice to Parents before Conception (how-to's for getting your kid on the Ivy League path), then conduct readers on a college prep run through test taking, essay writing, school rankings (skewering most of the high-profile institutions, including their own--"finally, a place where everyone is as awesome as me"), and etiquette advice (drinking games are "dangerous and should be avoided," but are clearly described all the same). The humor sometimes misses the mark, and the editors, who revel in the politically incorrect and the irreverent, are even a little ribald at times, but students (and a few parents) will find some of this goofball stuff laugh-out-loud funny. Stephanie Zvirin
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