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Alexandra Robbins is an investigative journalist, lecturer, and author. Her books focus on young adults, education, and modern college life and its more sordid aspects that are often overlooked or ignored by college administrators. At least two of her five books, Quarterlife Crisis and Pledged, have been on the New York Times Best Seller list.

She has also written for a variety of publications, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, and Salon.com. Robbins has appeared in the national media, on shows such as The O'Reilly Factor, 60 Minutes, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Paula Zahn Now, The View, The Colbert Report, and Anderson Cooper 360°, and networks including CNN, NPR, the BBC, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and the History Channel.

Along with co-author Jane Mayer, she broke the story about President Bush’s unimpressive college grades and SATs in The New Yorker. The article got such media attention that reporters called to interview her and asked what her SAT scores were. She has not made her scores known publicly.[1]

She graduated from Walt Whitman High School in 1994, the school profiled in The Overachievers; and summa cum laude from Yale University in 1998. She was editor-in-chief of her high school newspaper, the award winning Black & White.

She enjoys playing soccer, watching football, working out, baking pies, and hanging out with friends. She considers herself a Lost addict, a Star Wars nut, and a Steve Martin fan.

Contents 1 Interview with Stephen Colbert 2 Books 3 External links 4 References

Robbins was a guest on the satirical program The Colbert Report on August 9, 2006, during which Colbert challenged several claims Robbins makes in The Overachievers, citing a number of observations about Robbins' own experience. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

Robbins: It’s a numbers game. There are too many students applying to the same select group of colleges, and that’s a problem.

Colbert: And what college did you go to?

Robbins: I went to Yale. (followed by laughter)

Colbert: You went to Yale, okay. Well, you didn’t go to Katawbadeezle Tech, I mean you had your own goals, you achieved your goals and look at you: You’ve got your book here, you went to big school you had some jobs like the Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker. I mean come on, you’re an overachiever right?

(…)

Colbert: What’s the Biggest Myth about the Ivy League?

Robbins: I think the biggest myth about the Ivy League is that they're leaps and bounds ahead of all the other schools in the country, it’s just not true.

Colbert: But do they give you a leg up. I mean you went to Yale, you came right out of there and you get yourself a nice little job, working in publishing right?

Robbins: Absolutely nobody after I graduated from college ever asked where I went to school. It never came up.

Colbert: (jokingly) I just did. I just asked you where you went to school. Just caught you in a lie my friend. I got you.

"Robbins:" Okay, you got me. (laughter)

Colbert: You say there’s no childhood anymore, that we drive our kids too hard. But, isn’t childhood just an invention of the twentieth century? A hundred and twenty years ago, kids grew up, as soon as they could walk, we threw them into the factories so they could change some bobbins, okay? What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with making our kids work hard? I mean we’ve gotta increase productivity in this nation.

Robbins: I understand that bobbin changing and this one hundred and twenty years ago thing was how it was back in your day, but times have changed.

(…)

Colbert: So how do you think kids should be living. Should just let them be dumb kids?

Robbins: I don’t think they should be pushed to some standard by somebody’s expectations

Colbert: But the standards are always going to be the same on the highest level of employment, the highest level of the University. You’re just somebody who crawled up to the top of the woodshed and then pulled the ladder up behind you and shouted “No one else try hard, only me! I did it! To hell with you all!”

Robbins: (laughing) Now you’re just trying to be a douche bag

Colbert: No no no. I’m not trying to be a douche bag, I AM being a douche bag.

(…)

Colbert later ends the interview with the remark:

Colbert: Please come back the next time you ACHIEVE another book.

• The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids (2006)
• Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities (2005)
• Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis: Advice from Twentysomethings Who Have Been There and Survived (2004)
• Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power (2003)
• Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties (2001)

• Official website
• Interview by Black & White

Holmes, Anna (2000-04-17). How nosy political reporters measure up. Salon.com. Retrieved on March 19, 2007.