<p>THE season of college admission congratulation and breast-beating is upon us, now that American high school seniors have learned whether they have successfully gamed admissions departments into believing they are the sort of freakishly accomplished candidates that selective colleges seem to prefer students who require little sleep, tutor the underprivileged, captain the swim team and in their spare time work on Fermat's last theorem. </p>
<p>The other part of the ritual is that their parents, teachers and guidance counselors complain yet again about how arbitrary and unfair the whole system is, and everyone raises an eyebrow at the high-priced spin doctors who are hired to help well-off students buff their applications and essays or even get their novels published, like the mentor from IvyWise who counseled the Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan, now accused of plagiarism.</p>