FAQ

Q. Did you go to harvard?
A. Yes.

Q. How did you get in?
A. I have no idea. No, seriously, I realize that's completely unhelpful, but it's the truth. When I was in high school, I read pretty much every 'how to get into college' guide in existence, which was enough to convince me that no one gets in anywhere. So when the acceptance letter arrived, no one was more surprised than me. In college, there was always a rumor that you could go to the admissions office and take a look at your application, complete with admissions officers' comments. I always wanted to do it...but never did. Maybe because I was afraid of what I'd find! (Every year a few people have got to get admitted by mistake, right?)

Q. Was it your first choice school?
A. No -- for most of senior year, I was convinced I was going to Brown. I had the sweatshirt, the windshield sticker, the heavily thumbed course catalog, everything.

Q. How did you stay sane senior year?
A. Barely. But it helped that my friends and I rented "How I Got Into College," the greatest college applications movie ever made, over and over again. Highly recommended.

Q. Can I use the info in Hacking Harvard to hack harvard?
A. Um, no. Not recommended.

Q. Is the character of lex based on you?
A. Sort of. I'd like to think I wasn't nearly that ruthless or obnoxious, but I was definitely just as stressed and obsessed, if not more. Unlike Lex, I didn't sell my soul to some losers from the other side of town -- also unlike Lex, I didn't hook up with the class pranksters and find out how it felt to break the rules.

Q. Do you have any advice that might actually be helpful?
A. Not only do I have one piece of advice, I might even have three. First -- like those annoying commercials say, the more you know...the better off you'll be. Unfortunately, college admissions is a game. Fortunately, that means you have a big advantage if you figure out the rules. Second -- get someone you trust to proofread your application. (For evidence of why that's necessary, see below.) Third -- and this may sound like it contradicts the first -- be yourself. Don't be afraid to show off your real personality in your essay and your interview. Don't think you can game the system and turn yourself into the person the admissions committee wants you to be. You can't. They're onto you.

Q. What's the dumbest mistake you made while applying to college?
A. I applied to college back in the stone age, when you had to submit applications by snail mail. Each application came with space in which you could handwrite your essay, but everyone knew you were supposed to type it up and then just write "see attached" in the big empty space. Which is exactly what I did. Except that I wrote "see ATTATCHED." On every single application. And, because I refused to show my applications to anyone, didn't catch the misspelling until after they'd all been sent out. When I realized -- or rather, when my father pointed out the mistake with a look of incredulous horror on his face -- I think they probably heard my screams all the way up in Cambridge.