All Loves Excelling is the story of Amanda Bahringer, a bright, impressionable student at a prestigious boarding school, as she strives to live up to the expectations of her fiercely ambitious mother, Tess, by gaining the credentials for admission to Dartmouth. Her story reflects the pressures today's teenagers endure as they compete for admission to elite colleges. It reflects also the self-interest that drives some school authorities and which, added to parental pressure and often-skewed values, can combine to wreak havoc on the young.The grueling preparations for the SATs, the competition for athletic or other extracurricular distinction, the anorexia, the drug use, the tough classes and manic instructors - all these elements of today's high-school headlines are there in Amanda's pressure-cooker school life as she struggles to measure up to everyone's demands but her own.Parents of college-bound students and everyone involved with the world of education will empathize with the emotional stresses and school scenes depicted in this novel. Readers also will find it not only a moving story but a social commentary on the definitions of success that propel so many in today's world. Read Less