Groomed for a place at a Big Name School since their obsessed, status-conscious helicopter parents passed out cigars at the Stockstill General Hospital Neonatal Unit, the privileged students of Pembrocton College Preparatory are ratcheting up the stakes in the race to get into the nation's most prestigious colleges. The PCP juniors are gloating, jubilant at the rumor that the valedictorian presumptive has received a B on her report card, a grade that will relegate her to in-state hell. Her heir apparent, a three-generation Yale legacy, is the sole mourner at the demise of her future-if only because her thoughtless academic lapse is going to derail his plans to attend MIT. Across town, in the graffiti-covered halls of Stockstill High School, the students slink to class, praying that they arrive without a knife wound-and dream of ivy-covered walls. And with the help of a take-no-prisoners principal and an enterprising parent, the students at SHS dare to encroach shamelessly on territory normally reserved for their wealthy private school rivals. Join the fray as a memorable cast of characters engages in the latest rage in extracurricular activities: college admissions as a blood sport. Laugh out loud funny, The Applicants lampoons the heights we scale-and the depths to which we sink-to get into the "right" college. "