<p>I have four kids so I have seen quite a few admission and rejection letters and phone calls. I was most impressed that Ohio State University called my daughter in 2005 (don’t know if they still do) to tell her that she got in. Some of the other small schools have called but the fact that it was one of the largest schools in the country impressed me.</p>
<p>And Columbia College in Chicago sent gifts when accepted. That was nice</p>
<p>[bold] i loved this one [/bold]</p>
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<p>rew2402, that is absolutely hilarious! i am literally laughing out loud right now and tempted to share this with all my friends! thanks for sharing :D</p>
<p>i shall send that letter to my top choices. 101% sure i will! 
thanks @Someoverachiever for originally writing it XD</p>
<p>Honestly Binghamton was fairly low down on my college list but it has moved up significantly purely on the way they treated me once I got accepted. The email was cute. The subject was “you’re the one we want” and when you clicked on it the website showed a cute video. The letter came in a large green envelope that also said “you’re the one we want” across the front and they sent me several letters and emails inviting me to events and congratulating me on admission. I even got a personal call from an admissions counselor and a handwritten note in the mail from another admissions counselor! Never would’ve expected any of it from a large state school like Binghamton!</p>
<p>The Yale-NUS Admissions Committee has completed its evaluation of candidates in this round of admission, and I am genuinely sorry that we are not able to offer you a place at the College.</p>
<p>I realize that this decision may come as a disappointment. I also hope you will understand that this decision reflects only the extraordinary range of talents represented in our applicant pool, not a judgment of your own abilities or potential. Of the thousands of students who applied to Yale-NUS, most are fully capable of doing outstanding work and making unique contributions in a college or university community.</p>
<p>You may be tempted to ask what was lacking in your application. In truth, it is usually difficult for us to point to obvious weaknesses when so many applicants have demonstrated real achievement and potential for the future. Our decisions say far more about the small number of spaces available and the difficult choices we make than they do about a candidate’s personal and academic promise.</p>
<p>While regretting that we were not able to respond positively to your interest in Yale-NUS, I want to wish you every success in your educational pursuits.</p>
<p>I extend my best wishes for the coming year.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Jeremiah Quinlan</p>
<p>Dean of Admissions & Financial Aid</p>
<p>Objectively, this is pretty gentle. It does sound suspiciously similar to the Yale rejection letter I’ve seen floating around in previous years…</p>
<p>@ rew </p>
<p>We should all start rejecting the schools that reject us. I wonder what would happen if we all did it lol</p>
<p>@GoToCC, i would love to do that. indeed, after a rejection, i DEFINITELY might do something weird :P</p>
<p>I got rejected from Rice yesterday. It was pretty nice - too nice. It said that Rice could only accept fewer than one out of every sixteen applicants, which would make it as competitive as Harvard and does not reflect the official acceptance rate of around 18%. The part that actually made me the most upset was when it said it had to reject a lot of applicants to maintain its small size. I get it, but that just sounded like a really stupid reason. No one I know, including people actually in college, purports to actually give a damn about college size or even class size. Urgh. I’d feel much, much better if I’d at least gotten waitlisted, even if I knew somehow for sure that I wouldn’t be able to attend.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’d prefer a letter saying something like “You suck. No” and nothing else. It’d at least be to-the-point and not condescend.</p>
<p>The hypothetical rejection letter Eric Kester expects in “That Book about Harvard” is rather hilarious. </p>
<p>"Dear Eric ‘Failure’ Kester,</p>
<p>After carefully reviewing your application, we have determined that we cannot offer admission to you or any of your future offspring. This was not an easy decision*, but ultimately we concluded that it reflects poorly on the Harvard brand to admit a student who would be better served attending a lesser school, perhaps as a janitor. For your benefit we’ve included a pamphlet to a nearby orphanage in the event that your parents abandon you in shame. We wish you the best of luck in your future, highly unsuccessful life.
*It was. </p>
<p>With the utmost sincerity,</p>
<p>Harvard Admissions. </p>
<p>P.S. Your ex-girlfriend was right about you."</p>
<p>emberjed - I’m sorry that you did not get the result that you wanted from Rice, but maintaining the size of a class is a legitimate reason for not accepting more students. More acceptances would mean that they would need to build more dorms, more classrooms, more labs, hire more profs, more maintenance staff, etc., etc. This is a consideration for every school that has greater demand than they can handle.</p>
<p>Here is my recent list of Denied Letters: Notre Dame, UNC, Michigan, University of Florida,Probaly Brown, Probaly Boston College. Yale Deferred, UVA -Wait listed, Villanova-Wait listed.
Other peers I know were accepted in most of schools with lower GPA/SAT/ACT…No reason why anymore!!!</p>
<p>^^True; it’s just the need to maintain the small size that bugs me, not the impracticality of building more facilities. The latter is very clearly a practical issue; the former just seems frivolous.</p>
<p>Rejection from WashU and Northwestern were really generic. Just like kthnxbye. </p>
<p>Acceptance from Rice was… also really generic. It didn’t even make it seem like you were special. That was online though… so I hope the package/letter in the mail is a bit more exciting like my safety schools were.</p>
<p>@emberjed: I’m sorry about your rejection from Rice. However, the school IS well known for its close-knit community - which is only possible due to the small student body. Honestly, it is one of the main reasons why so many choose Rice. The opportunities and student-faculty interactions are magnified through the small class size.</p>
<p>Again, sorry to hear about your rejection - but criticizing the institution’s policy isn’t going to change anything. I understand why you’re bitter, though. Anyways, you’ll end up somewhere great - so keep your chin up. :)</p>
<p>This is Carletons waitlist letter, it’s actually really nice</p>
<p>Dear lemming101,</p>
<p>Your application has been carefully reviewed by the members of the Admissions Committee. While we were very favorably impressed by your fine academic qualifications and many personal strengths, I am sorry to tell you that we cannot offer you admission at this time. We would like to offer you a place on our Waiting List in the hope that a place in next year’s entering class will open up for you later on this spring.</p>
<p>I am truly sorry that this is not a letter of admission. Like most other highly selective colleges, Carleton receives a far greater number of applications from highly qualified students than it can possibly accept. This has been once again an extremely competitive year; a 20% rise in applications reduced our acceptance rate to below a quarter of applicants. Many students, like yourself, who might well have been admitted to Carleton in previous years, must now wait for an available space. At this time of year, the College’s small size, one of its great strengths, is my greatest frustration.</p>
<p>While we believe you should not be on a “Waiting List,” here or anywhere else, it is the best we can offer you at this time. In the event that we have space in the Class of 2017 later this spring, a member of my staff will immediately call or email some students who expressed a desire to remain on our Waiting List. In order to hold a place on the Waiting List, you should send us a written request or email indicating your interest by May 1, or alternately, beginning March 25, you may also open your application status page on our website, and complete a waitlist response form.</p>
<p>I suspect that crystal ball gazing might be as effective as statistical calculation in predicting the outcome of our April admission offers. On the one hand, we fully anticipate (and will be delighted) to admit at least some of our wait-listed students; over the past dozen years, we have admitted only a few and as many as 65. On the other hand, we simply cannot predict with precision how many students will accept our offer of admission. If your interest in attending Carleton continues, I sincerely hope we will be able to offer you admission.</p>
<p>Whatever your decision regarding the Waiting List, I do want you to know that we appreciate your interest in Carleton and the care and time you have spent completing your application. We are confident that you will be a very successful college student, and we wish you well as you continue your studies.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Paul Thiboutot
Vice President and Dean of
Admissions and Financial Aid</p>
<p>MIT has a vey comforting letter it did not make me feel bad after getting rejected</p>
<p>Do universities send gifts to international students as well ? or do they just send gifts to a few students in general ? just wondering</p>
<p>Northeastern and GW acceptance letters weren’t that special. Northeastern’s felt generic and GW barely had a paragraph. </p>
<p>Harvard’s deferral was just like “heyyyyyyyyyyyy bro, thanks for the application. We cant decide whether you belong here. Give us some more time to evuluate your application and continuously torture you with hopes and dreams.”</p>