Hart Fox might not have the pedigree to be a shoo-in at Stutts, prestigious New England Ivy, but he does have the grades and the resume. And he does make it in - sort of. His acceptance is hijacked by Burlington Darlington III, a wealthy alum running for governor who is so desperate to get his hapless son, Trip, into Stutts that he funds a new chemistry building. Darlington also offers to get Hart a spot in the freshman class and pay his way, if Hart will "manage" Trip and take all his classes for him. Despite this deal with the devil, in September Hart walks onto the Stutts campus jubilant. But what awaits him is a strange parallel universe of secret societies, class hierarchies, and inexplicable traditions. On any given day at Stutts, the Math Department might discover that the number 9 doesn't really exist; an English professor might prove that Shakespeare's plays had been penned by a pot-bellied pig; or worried grad students might be chasing an escaped black hole.Hart dreams of building to his resume at the college newspaper. But instead, he finds himself aligned with the outcasts at an all-but-defunct school humor magazine. Along the way he learns about the joys of decimating beer-can pyramids, the horror of being "rusticated", and even falls in love - with a preppy vampire. Groundbreaking, hilarious, and surprising, Freshman marks the teen fiction debut of a brilliant writer.