Best/Worst Admission/Rejection Letters

Applying to College
501

<p>i was quite partial to my washu letter </p>

<p>Dear Virginia: </p>

<p>Congratulations! We are delighted to offer you admission to the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University. You and your family should be very proud of your accomplishments. You were selected from more than 22,000 applicants for our freshman class of approximately 1,350. We are confident that you will be an outstanding member of the Washington University community.</p>

<p>To accept this offer of admission and ensure a place in our freshman class, please take some time to review the information in this packet, complete the enclosed enrollment form, and return it to our office postmarked no later than May 1, 2006. Enclosed you will find information on financing from the Office of Student Financial Services. This information describes various options for the payment of tuition and room and board. If you applied for financial assistance, your financial assistance notification will arrive in a few days. Please be sure to share all financial information with your family.</p>

<p>Our experience has shown that students who remain academically engaged through the conclusion of their senior year adjust more readily when they enroll at Washington University. Your admission to the University is, therefore, contingent upon the successful completion of your senior year. We would like to see your academic performance continue at the same level of excellence you have exhibited up to this point. You must also complete the classes in which you are currently enrolled. Please be sure to send us final transcripts when they are available. </p>

<p>Finally, welcome to the Washington University community. You will find that our faculty and students work together extraordinarily well, and that the community of individuals at this institution is a very special group of people. We look forward to greeting you on our campus in August.</p>

<p>Have a great and successful conclusion to your senior year!</p>

<p>Sincerely,</p>

502

<p>The best: Loyola New Orleans called my D at home to tell her she was accepted and asked if she would like to interview for a scholarship. A real class act!</p>

503

<p>u of oregon has a student call in the evening and tell u u got in, and answer any questions… very nice and personal. the honors college was a small envelope that i actually lost in some coupon books for a day! hahaha man that could have been bad, because they still havnt sent anything else!</p>

<p>uc davis is kinda meh very impersonal online, the actual paper one is more about the applicant though.</p>

<hr>

<p>Congratulations! We are pleased to offer you admission to the University of California, Davis for Fall Quarter 2006 in the Pre-Managerial Economics major. To see all that UC Davis offers you, please visit the Explore and Campus Resources sections to the right. </p>

<p>In whatever program you study, you will receive an exceptional education and a degree that is respected by graduate schools and employers around the world. Our philosophy of learning, discovery and engagement means that you will graduate with an academic foundation strengthened by research and internships. It also ensures that you will understand how your learning is relevant to the greater world. </p>

<p>The deadline to accept or decline your offer of enrollment on this Web site is 11:45 pm (Pacific Time) on May 1, 2006. To accept, you must pay a non-refundable, non-transferable $100 deposit.</p>

504

<p>My daughter got a very personalized acceptance letter from Kenyon. The letter said (in part): “When we read …” and here they inserted several sentences from one of her essays “we knew you would make a fine addition to Kenyon’s long literary tradition”. I don’t know if they selected that way to personalize her letter because she had indicated an interest in the writing program, or if it was something they do for everyone, but I thought it was great!</p>

505

<p>Columbia’s rejection letter is basically telling you not to commit suicide from disappointment.</p>

<p>Berkeley doesn’t even send you a rejection letter by mail. They won’t even freakin’ bother to do that.</p>

<p>NYU’s acceptance is awesome.</p>

506

<p>I found Tuft’s acceptance letter to be quite humorous, actually. Especially where it says “you wrote an impressive application”…it’s like they’re acknowledging the fact that they admitted you based on your application and not you as a person (which is a very valid and sharp observation):</p>

<p>Dear Barney the Dinosaur:</p>

<p>I am delighted to offer you admission to Tufts University. You wrote an impressive application and I invite you to begin study with our Faculty in the College of Liberal Arts next August as a member of our Class of 2010.</p>

<p>Tufts received more than 15,300 applications this year and your admission to the University from this large and talented group recognizes your outstanding academic and personal record. As you know, Tufts uses the curricular framework of the liberal arts and engineering to address the great intellectual and social challenges of the new century. As such, we place a high premium on intellectual curiosity, citizenship and originality, and you clearly embody these qualities. You will add an important voice to the intellectual and social vitality that defines our undergraduate community, and we look forward to welcoming you to The Hill as we begin our 153rd academic year next fall.</p>

<p>Our offer of admission is made with the expectation that you will maintain the level of academic excellence and personal integrity that characterized your candidacy. Accordingly, we will carefully review your final grade report, and we ask that you return the enclosed Final Academic Report to our office by June 30.</p>

<p>As you weigh your matriculation decision, plan to attend one of our Open House programs for accepted students and their parents; an invitation and program guide is available in this packet. In addition, a special web site for admitted students is available for your use at <a href=“http://admissions.tufts.edu/2010[/url]”>http://admissions.tufts.edu/2010&lt;/a&gt;. Log in with the same username and password you used to access the site you’re currently viewing.</p>

<p>To confirm your place in the Class of ‘10, you must pay a non-refundable deposit of $600 USD by May 1, 2006. You may do this either by paying the deposit online using the link at the top of this page, or sending a check with your mailed Enrollment Decision Form. If you wish to decline our offer please indicate your decision using the online or paper Enrollment Decision Form as soon as your plans become known, but no later than May 1, 2006.</p>

<p>Please call us at (617) 627-3170 if we can assist you or your parents as you consider our offer. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.</p>

<p>Congratulations again, Barney the Dinosaur. </p>

<p>Sincerely, </p>

<p>Lee A. Coffin
Dean of Undergraduate Admissions</p>

507

<p>Berkeley’s online admission letter was pretty simple. </p>

<p>"Congratulations, Billy Bob</p>

<p>Your application for freshman admission to the College of Letters and Sciences has been approved for Fall 2006. We welcome you to join us at Berkeley."</p>

<p>UCLA’s admission letter was far more interesting. The online version had a big “Congratulations” sign, while the actual letter came in a decent package and was fairly decent.</p>

<p>I have to check Yale’s, I’ll try to post it once I get the chance.</p>

508

<p>Does anyone have UChicago’s rejection letter? I actually liked it - read it a couple 100 times, pinned it on my bulletin board to remind myself that I’m a failure, and then decided that was unhealthy and tossed it. Almost wished I didn’t though. Very personal - I felt like it was written to me. Haha…</p>

509

<p>I had a great experience opening a Georgetown acceptance in December… made me feel very good about myself. BC was nice too, the man who read my application wrote a short handwritten note on the letter. The Tufts acceptance was fine, as is posted above, and the Yale rejection was kind of abrupt, but not a real sting because I <em>love</em> Georgetown, probably more than Yale, and I was trying to be ready for a rejection. </p>

<p>Still waiting to find out the Middlebury decision…</p>

510

<p>Bates’ was really nice, came in a nice folder with lots of info.</p>

511

<p>cornells rejection - :frowning: - was the best rejection i’ve seen.</p>

<p>it recognized that i (and all other applicants that were rejected, im sure) would have succeeded in cornell but they still just didn’t have space for me. this took the sting out of it a little, because that is how i felt - that i would have been great in cornell but my numbers just didnt compare to the other applicants.</p>

512

<p>Here’s an idea for the worst rejection:</p>

<p>Send rejected students the exact same package that goes to admitted students, but without the “Congratulations!” cover letter. The only indication of rejection is that on the form that you return with the deposit that asks if you’re attending the college, the “NO” box is already checked.</p>

513

<p>Or use something that was posted earlier: Re:jection
You do not fulfill the academic nor extracurricular standards for an admitted student and as such have been rejected from the pool.</p>

514

<p>back in 2001</p>

<p>a thick lettersized envelope came from stanford. thick and heavy. holy crap, i had completely not expected it. i knew it wasn’t an acceptance but… waitlist? could it be?
no. stanford sent me a 3 page rejection letter. a standard rejection letter. and 2 pages (blue, too) of FAQ about being rejected. how there were lots of qualified candidates and no, do not call, there’s absolutely nothing you can do. but two pages of it.</p>

<p>swarthmore scared the crap out of me. i knew i wouldn’t get in. but when i came home and saw that the envelope wasn’t standard sized (it was 5.5x8) i thought, hey, maybe…
no. just folded over once instead of three times. and the most bried rejection letter ever, too. one paragraph, like 3 sentences. bastards.</p>

<p>dartmouth had the best brochure and application packet, and clearly liked it.
but holy hell, when i got the admission… as someone had mentioned, there was a very personally-signed looking “certificate of admissions”. pretty sweet. at the same time, i got hand written letters and notes from the admissions office, the international office, and a couple days later, from the math department! although it was the FA package that won me over, i immediately fell in love with dartmouth, knew that it was a sweet school…</p>

515

<p>Stanford</p>

<p>Dear Ron Mexico,</p>

<p>I write to notify you that we are, regrettably, unable to offer you admission to Stanford University for fall 2006. I appreciate the thought and effort you put into your application and into selecting Stanford as one of your college choices. The overall strength of our applicant pool and relatively small size of our freshman class means that we disappoint the majority of our applicants each year. I am personally sorry to share this disappointment with you.</p>

<p>More detailed information about our decision, as well as the answers to the most commonly asked questions about the admission process at Stanford, will be enclosed in the letter you will receive in the coming days.</p>

<p>With all best wishes to you for a very bright future,</p>

<p>Richard H. Shaw</p>

<h2>Dean of Admission and Financial Aid</h2>

516

<p>wait is your name really ron mexico? because that is an awesome name!</p>

517

<p>lol nope. that’s michael vick’s(nfl qb) umm…other alias. it’s kind of a long story but maybe some sports person here can explain it haha.</p>

518

<p>That Stanford rejection packgage that is big like an acceptance pacage is just cruel. They make the kid think he got in and then when the person frantically rips open the package to see all the papers they still think they are in. Then they are then crushed.</p>

519

<p>Princeton’s was really nice, mostly because the I had been crying for two days about getting waitlisted at Penn</p>

520

<p>I thought so too. See the letter appended below to judge for yourself. The acceptance rate is less than 7% of a highly self-selected group. The letter also tells one outright that no specific reasons can be given for the non-acceptance. Also, note that “we were not able to admit you to Princeton this year.” Perhaps things could have been different if it were another year. So dream on …</p>

<hr>

<pre><code> March 29, 2006
</code></pre>

<p>Dear [first name]:</p>

<p>The admissions committee has met and I am sorry to inform you that we were not able to admit you to Princeton this year. We received a record applicant pool of over 17,500 applications and we were able to admit only a small percentage of that pool for an entering class of 1,220 students.</p>

<p>We realize you may be disappointed with this decision. We could not admit all the qualified students who applied to Princeton in this admission cycle. Our choices reflect the strength and size of our appicant pool, and they are not judgments on any student’s potential as a college student.</p>

<p>The Admissions committee made each decision in the context of the other applications and therefore, we cannot provide specific reasons why certain students were not offered admission. The enclosed “Statement to Candidates” gives an overview of the process. We know this explanation may not be consoling, but it is as much as can be practically given.</p>

<p>The committee appreciated the time, care, and effort you put into your application. We wish you well as you pursue your education.</p>

<p>Sincerely,</p>

<p>(signed)
Dean of Admission</p>