The Golden Ticket

As someone who was born in the USSR, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now works in school admissions consulting, it’s rare that I find a book which reflects my experience. And by rare, I mean - never. Until The Golden Ticket.

Irina Smith has a wry and realistic view of the process, which is that, ultimately, what school your child goes to is much, much less important than the kind of person they are. A great reminder for all frantic parents.

This book, forthcoming from She Writes Press in 2023, is by a first-time author and mother of three who has for years counseled college applicants in Palo Alto, California, ground zero for educational anxiety. Smith combines beautiful writing, a wry comic sensibility, and indomitable courage in this all-too-timely timely book, which I was lucky to read pre-publication. She weaves together descriptions of the outlandish lengths to which some families will go to get their kids into the Ivies with scenes from her own backstage struggles to keep her children out of psychiatric hospitals. I’ve admired Smith’s incisive, delightfully shameless essays… show more.