Are education reporters unwittingly contributing to the hysteria over elite college admissions? What do policymakers say needs to be done to ramp down the tension without dimming enthusiasm among students? And how did the perception of college admissions as inaccessible to most -- when the reverse is actually more accurate -- become so pervasive?

Alia Wong, associate editor of The Atlantic, discusses her three-part series on college admissions and how this competitive attitude is influencing -- and sometimes hurting -- school experiences for students at all levels of the academic spectrum. (Bonus feature: Smart story ideas for higher education reporters that dig deeper than just reporting on a school's selectivity.)