Corey Parker’s Most Underrated ‘80s Movie Feels More Relevant Than Ever

After news arrived that Corey Parker had died of cancer at 60 this March, loving tributes flooded in for the Memphis-born actor, who had starred in such ’80s movies as Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, Scream for Help, and Biloxi Blues, before also becoming an acting coach for shows like Ms. Marvel in later years. Less spoken about was the underrated How I Got Into College, in which Parker starred as Marlon Browne, an underachiever who pulls out all the stops to get admitted to the same college as his talented high school crush, Jessica Kailo (Lara Flynn Boyle.)

The film did not do well, critically or commercially, and curious cinephiles seeking it out in the decades since its release have found it hard to get hold of. That’s a real shame, because where the themes of other ’80s teen comedies like Revenge of the Nerds and Porky’s have aged like milk, How I Got Into College deals with a coming-of-age scenario that feels more relevant than ever.

In Savage Steve Holland’s lesser-known 1989 movie, we follow a group of young characters whose post-high-school worth is suddenly defined by their academic achievements. The endearing Marlon seems to be a hopeless case, while two African-American seniors from Detroit also have to fight for consideration by the admissions team at Ramsey College. On the team is the sneering Leo (Charles Rocket) who is entirely focused on SAT scores and clashes with former students Kip and Nina (Anthony Edwards and Finn Carter) who want to take a more holistic approach to admissions.

Satirizing a system that prioritizes credentials over character and attempting to break the myth of “the perfect applicant,” How I Got Into College explores whether the will to push forwards into higher education is enough and whether the ladder is being pulled up by those who have already benefited from it. The students applying to Ramsey College feel they need to stand out, whatever it takes, but this tale of their efforts still seems pretty quaint compared to today’s college admissions arms race.

The film certainly understood the problems of its time, yet it also became a harbinger for worse to come. The competition among students and their families to build the most impressive college applications has only escalated. These days, colleges receive far more applications than they can admit. Academic credentials alone are no longer enough to stand out from the crowd, but not in the idealistic way that How I Got Into College fantasized about. The movie also touches on the desire to pile up skills and the need for extracurriculars, like honors courses, internships, and volunteer experiences, that now plague so many college applicants. So much so that more than half of them rank the process as their most stressful academic experience.

The level of competition is just one problem for students who are pursuing increasingly ambitious activities to differentiate themselves. Some suggest that personal growth and genuine learning are declining as they race to outperform their peers, and as some fight to be noticed, they may also discover that there are even more factors beyond their control influencing the outcome. Federal prosecutors unearthed a major U.S. college admissions scandal as recently as 2019, where wealthy parents were paying millions of dollars to fraudulently secure their children’s admission to elite universities. Manipulating a path into higher education was apparently an option for some wealthy and influential people, so what chance did regular kids who bent over backwards really have in a scenario like that?

Ultimately, How I Got Into College’s dismissal of “the perfect applicant” myth was indeed well ahead of its time. It remains a sweet movie with a great performance by Parker, and more people should discover it on their hunt for underrated ’80s gems. Though the college admissions process has evolved since its release, it should hit home for anyone who has had to face this kind of intense, exhausting competition, or those who have noticed that privilege and connections can just get some people further in life. Almost 40 years later, these often-questionable ethics of success endure.