The High Schooler's Guide to College Parties (2015)

Director: Patrick Johnson
Writers: Patrick Johnson, Natalie Dickinson
Stars: Nate Rubin, Kris Kiley, Brina Palencia

The High-Schooler's Guide to College Parties centers on a high-school senior named Shaquille (a name for which he can thank his overly politically correct parents). Shaq has grown up below the radar, raised in a lower-middle-class family by an ultra-laid-back (currently unemployed) father who marches to the beat of his own drummer. Shaq is desperately trying to move up social class. He is tired of being average and a "loser"-tired of being lumped into the category of the geeks, misfits, outcasts, rebels, etc that was his high school existence. That life has lost its romance. Reality has set in. He's ready to join "the system," but is the system ready for him? It's time to make a change, and he thinks that getting into the right college with the right people is the answer. Money and connections have escaped him his whole life. His dad is a working class liberal-minded under-achiever. Shaq is terrified of ending up like him. Since Shaq has no funds and weak grades, his college choices more along the community college level, but he believes that will only cement him into the very life he wants to escape. He thinks that his cousin Brett (by marriage) is his best chance at getting into the school and social circle of his dreams. Brett has always been the successful one in the family: smart, popular, athletic… Brett is also on the scholarship committee for the private university he attends and is highly connected to a sponsoring alumnus. Unfortunately for Shaq, Brett is a jerk-and they have never gotten along. Shaq thinks that if he can impress Brett by throwing a successful party, Brett could get him into the university and his fraternity. Shaq is faced the dilemma of how to get where he wants in life-does he sell out his friends to impress Brett, or does he uphold his integrity? Sometimes the easy way is not always the only way.

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