WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: College Letters Fat and Thin. “The college admission process is hard. It’s particularly hard on a lot of young Americans because the college admissions process is the event that demonstrates how much they are surrounded by hypocritical lying weasels. . . . Grade inflation and self esteem chitchat fuzz the harsh edges of the real world, but then come SAT scores and the competition for college admissions and scholarships. It turns out that you don’t live in Lake Wobegon: a lot of kids are below average, and you just might be one of them.”

Plus, useful advice on what to do next, whether you’re above average or below. Including this: “The kids with the best grades, and the kids who work hardest and most successfully to please adults, often do not turn out to be the happiest, most successful and most useful adults. I used to tell my students at Yale that 99 percent of the students who graduate from Yale are never heard from again.”