Amanda Bahringer, a bright, impressionable student at a prestigious boarding school, struggles to measure up to everyone's demands, from her mother to her instructors, as she tries to gain the credentials needed for admission to Dartmouth.
A young man at a prestigious, literary New England preparatory school who has spent his entire time there hiding his real self in order to fit in finds his facade and his world falling apart during his senior year.
Midwesterner Lee Fiora is sent by her father to a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts where she manages to survive in spite of the social differences between her and her classmates.