Eric Hoover, “Why This College Applicant Turned Her Yard Into an Admissions-Themed Horror Show” (2017)

“It all began on Wednesday morning, when a friend emailed me after spotting a house that was still decked out for Halloween. Its theme, she knew, was right up my alley: the horrors of applying to college.

“The front yard contained an eyeful of terrors, each a clever expression of precollege anxiety. An inflatable dragon towered over its hapless victim — a mannequin representing a tuition-paying father hung face down amid gold coins spilled from his pockets. Lo, the ‘Dragon’s Den of Debt.’ Beside that stood an oversize replica of a multiple-choice bubble sheet. On this version of the SAT (the ‘Scary Aptitude Test’), the options weren’t A-B-C-D; they were S-C-R-E-A-M.

“The folks who live here, I figured, must have strong feelings about the nerve-wracking ritual orchestrated annually by powerful colleges, enrollment consultants, marketing firms, and testing companies. Families — the most important players of all — have an intimate view of the whole wicked affair, the toll it takes on teenagers, and how it warps the virtues that academe supposedly cherishes. Yet their insights often go unheard. Curious, I climbed the porch steps and knocked on the door.”    —Chronicle of Higher Education (November 10, 2017)