If 15-year-old Anna Zvagelskaya were a shoe, she writes, she would be pink, with a very pointy toe, a flared heel, straps and a diamond buckle.It's five months before the application deadline at most elite colleges, and a year and five months before Ms. Zvagelskaya's application is due at Harvard, her top choice. But on a summer day here at Tufts University, the San Francisco high-school junior and a dozen other teenagers are enrolled in a two-week college-application camp, spending two hours a day in class -- and hours more each night -- crafting the essays that they hope will vault them to the head of the college queue.
"There are so many kids with perfect grades out there," says Ms. Zvagelskaya, who frets over "a few B's" on her transcript. "Your essay gives you an extra push, a chance to shine"...
Ah, that's it. These students aren't writing simple, well-crafted essays; they're writing artsy, confabulated crap in an attempt to avoid having to suffer the ignominy of a state school. Sheesh.
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