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<p>To me it seems like the letter is just nothing but fluff. I don’t think I’d feel any worse if they had just said “Heh, you’re not good enough kbai”, but yeah I get that it was a tough choice for them.</p>
<p>Though, it has puzzled me as to why they can’t expand their school rather than accept fewer people if it’s “their loss”? I know, easier said than done by quite a lot, but still. I feel like it’s not really their loss if they don’t show that it is.</p>
<p>Stanford has actually been slowly increasing the size of the incoming freshman class. However, there is a lot of resistance to increasing this size because then quality of teaching inevitably goes down --more lecture classes as opposed to seminars, harder to get into study abroad programs (which are already very selective for the most competitive programs), housing issues (which we’ve had in the past), less funding for field trips, etc. They can’t just expand their class size to accommodate the increasing number of applicants. </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure the Stanford Daily did an article about this same issue rather recently.</p>
<p>^ [University</a> examines growing class size | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/03/04/university-examines-growing-class-size/]University”>http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/03/04/university-examines-growing-class-size/)</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> admits 2,300 | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/03/26/stanford-admits-2300/]Stanford”>http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/03/26/stanford-admits-2300/)</p>
<p>I dunno, doesn’t seem like it grew that much (from 2300 to 2300, a magnificent 0% increase!). An additional 50 spots (as noted in the growing class size article) would yield 0.16% more students being admitted. Yes, it’s still less than the 7.6% of previous years, but it’s at least closer.</p>
<p>Is it not the accepted pool that’s increasing, rather, just more people wanting to go to Stanford?</p>
<p>Someone told me that the rejection e-mail was well worth the $90 application fee. If so, everyone should apply to Stanford just so they can get such a “personalized” e-mail.</p>
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<p>Why, when I will gladly send them a personalized waitlist email for just $84.99? :)</p>
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<p>Holy cow! I didn’t realize that Stanford’s application fee was that astronomical. I applied for $9 (for submission of the CSS Profile) due to a fee waiver.</p>