Did you know? A child's guidance counselor can help reverse a deferral. A parent can help get a child off a waiting list. And there is a way for students to back out of Early Decision once they've been accepted.

In "What Colleges Don't Tell You (and Other Parents Don't Want You To Know)" (Hudson Street Press, $23.95), Elizabeth Wissner-Gross, a highly sought-after "packager" of high school students, shares highly coveted strategies to help parents get their kids into the country's most competitive colleges.

Every week, national publications such as "The New York Times," "USA Today" and "The Wall Street Journal" chronicle how college admissions in the U.S. have never been as competitive as they are right now. Three million kids graduate every year from nearly 30,000 high schools-that means 30,000 valedictorians and 30,000 editors-in-chief all applying to the same top schools.

Nowadays, being a hardworking, well-rounded student at the top of every school organization and loaded with good recommendations is not enough.

Targeting the college-educated parents of today's college-bound teenagers, Wissner-Gross empowers parents by decoding the highly secretive and seemingly arbitrary college admissions process, revealing 272 little-known, unconventional, tried-and-true secrets to help parents get their children into the schools of their dreams.