The burgeoning college admissions industry is one that is in need of deflating and ridicule, and the Harvard Lampoon, one of the nations bastions of both, has written a book to do so.

The editors and contributors to the Harvard Lampoon have all presumably gone through the madness of the college admission process, and this book seems to exude a certain disdain for the scramble for success on Standardized Tests and racking up high school activities.

This books has hints, therefore, of social satire, but it doesn't wear it out, instead focusing on being funny. And this book succeeds very well at being funny. Some of its humor is closely related to the topic, while at other times it floats off on tangents of nonsense. For example, its description of Amherst College is a joke on how Amherst is a magical fairy kingdom "three inches wide". Some of the jokes focus on subject matter that would be expected, while some is pure comic riffing. In any case, it works perfectly, at least to my taste.