Usually the parents of applicants drive me a little nuts, but yesterday I received a lovely email from an applicant's father who reminded me that a little perspective goes a long way when people go into panic mode. And this time of year, applicants are going into serious panic mode.

The family crisis? The applicant -- call her X -- had just found out that the superstar professor who had promised to write her a recommendation a few months back has decided not to write any this coming semester.

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I'm intrigued by Brian Leiter's rankings of law schools based on the success rates of its graduates in the 2006-2008 law school teaching market. If you don't want to read the rankings, here are some take-aways:

1. Yale was the most successful school (45% placement rate); Chicago was second (43%), followed by Stanford (41%), Harvard (37%), and UVa (35%).

2. Harvard and Yale accounted for 40% of all new faculty hires (90 out of 231).

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I don't get books like this new one called Ahead of the Curve by recent HBS graduate Philip Delves Broughton. He was apparently shocked to discover that students there are competitive! And graded on a curve! They work hard/play hard! And head off to stressful, high-paying jobs! This guy was a journalist for ten years before going to business school. Why were these newsflashes to him?

The HBS culture is a strong one, and it's pretty transparent.

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The headline says it all: "Strain on all sides as students put off college selections"

The front page of today's Boston Globe has a story about how July is just around the corner, but "a startling number of incoming freshmen are still torn over their college plans," and "some waitlisted students still hold out hope they will get into their top-choice school, while others who have already been accepted are not sure they can afford theirs.

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Mary Abraham, who blogs about knowledge management at law firms, writes:

I can't wait until Generation Y lawyers start flooding through the doors of big law firms. We're told that just about everything about Gen Y runs counter to the work ethic and environment of these firms. So a showdown is inevitable. It will be very interesting to see which force prevails.

I'd put my money on Big Law.

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