Admissions Pressure in Novel Form

I felt I had to do it -- read Karen Stabiner's novel, Getting In, about five families in the Los Angeles area who are determined to get their children into top schools. Stabiner is a fine writer who uses lots of funny and pointed detail, and she even blogs about college issues for the Huffington Post. But the book is making me really dread this process.

A friend whose daughter got into a great school told me to take it with a grain of salt. My own common sense tells me it's a novel, for pete's sake. There's often drama and exaggeration in this literary form. I'm still depressed.

Then I read an article on stress in the workplace. One of the chief culprits is performance reviews.

Isn't the college admissions process like an unrelenting 30-month-or-so performance review? I guess our teens survive and for the most part are better for it. But I am worried about second-hand stress on me.

As parents of a freshman, we have barely entered the fray. Guess I am reading too many scary stories, such as Getting In, before bed time. I need to get over it, right?