The Hawthorne family has it all: great jobs, a beautiful house in one of the most affluent areas of northern California, and three charming kids with perfectly straight teeth. Then comes eldest daughter Angela’s senior year of high school.
 
Suddenly, everyone is floundering. As Angela writes and rewrites her application for Harvard --- her father's alma mater --- and struggles to maintain her position as valedictorian, Nora Hawthorne’s career hits a rough patch, taking her away from a newly distracted husband and uncharacteristically anxious younger daughters. And as the secrets everyone has been keeping will come to light, it sets the family on a final collision course that will force them to reevaluate, with humor and heart, the value of achievement.