One of the funniest stories I ever heard about the college admissions madness came from an independent consultant who was paid handsomely to guide families through it and increase the odds that Harvard or Yale said yes.

He recounted the involvement of one father and mother in their son’s personal (hah!) essay, which they didn’t trust him to ace himself. They drafted it, focusing of course on the hardship that he had overcome. But when they showed it to him, he spotted a minor problem. What they’d described — his mom’s difficult pregnancy, a sequence of visits to medical specialists, so much fear, so much suspense — predated his arrival in this world. Poignant as it was, he could take zero credit for it.

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