How I Got into College

1989 film by Savage Steve Holland

How I Got Into College is a 1989 American romantic comedy film directed by Savage Steve Holland, starring Anthony Edwards, Corey Parker and Lara Flynn Boyle, and produced and released by 20th Century Fox. This is the film debut of eventual voice actor Tom Kenny, who would become best known as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants.

The story follows two high school seniors from Michigan on their quest to get into Ramsey College, a small college in Pennsylvania: popular and talented Jessica, and unnoticed underachiever Marlon. Jessica wants to break free of both her high school image and her family's near maniacal devotion to the University of Michigan, while Marlon simply wants to go to whatever college Jessica is going to because he's completely in love with her. Jessica and Marlon go from being in completely different orbits to slowly becoming friends and then romantic interests for each other. The battle lines at Ramsey are drawn between a priggish administrator named Leo who wants to make SAT scores the entire arbiter of who gets in, and good hearted Ramsey alums turned Admissions officers Kip and Nina, who feel that SAT scores are important but not the whole or even the main story behind any applicants. Side stories involve two African American high school seniors in Detroit (one a natural leader whose father died when she was younger, the other a very talented football player whose desire to expand his intellectual horizons is ignored by everyone), Marlon's college eschewing best friend Oliver, a conniving pair of untalented "SAT tutors", and the battle between Leo and Kip/Nina to get a great class of students to Ramsey.

Jan Eliasberg started directing but was fired five days into filming and replaced with Savage Steve Holland. Production on the film commenced in February 1988, actress Lara Flynn Boyle left production briefly in March 1988 to film reshoots for the ending of Poltergeist III.

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has rated it at 50%.

The film was a box office bomb, making just $651,850 in its opening weekend from 743 theaters for an average of $877 per venue. It ended its run with only $1,642,239 domestically.