Most CC’ers may not remember this but in the early 1970’s NYU was on the verge of bankruptcy and it was rumored that the university would close. That is when the Bronx campus was sold to CUNY. The Bronx Arts and Sciences programs were merged with those at Washington Square. The Bronx Engineering school was transferred to Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn which morphed into Polytechnic University which has now come full circle as NYU’s new School of Engineering.
NYU, like BU, Northeastern, BC and GWU, had to upscale because a no frills private school can no longer compete with relatively low cost public schools.
The bankruptcy issue actually started in the late '60s due to the city’s financial crisis, start of a crime wave which would last into the late '80s/early '90s, decline of the Bronx/NYC which meant wealthier NYC/Tri-state area families were reluctant to apply and attend NYU…especially in the Bronx, effects from years of neglect of poor neighborhoods and public infrastructure like the subways starting to rear their ugly heads*, and NYU admin mismanagement from earlier decades of overexpansion which saddled NYU with debt along with ongoing operating costs for underutilized buildings.
These factors were also ones which affected Columbia which factored into Columbia becoming one of the least favored Ivies/elite colleges by undergrad applicants and especially parents from the late '60s till the late '90s. Attitudes which were still manifest among those in the top quarter of my HS graduating class and some upper/upper-middle class suburbanite relatives and their neighbors well into the 1990's. Those factors were also not only past history, but experienced firsthand from childhood to the cusp of young adulthood.
Once those factors were no longer a major factor and NYC became a “cool city” again, applications to Columbia and NYU surged to the point both schools became much more popular and favored by undergrad applicants nationally and around the world.
If I had stated to HS classmates and teachers in the 1990’s that Columbia U would end up ranked #4 on the USNWR rankings a little under two decades later or that NYU would be attracting such popularity it sometimes overshadowed several elite Us including in some cases, Harvard, they’d all be wondering what in the heck was I smoking,
This is s masters in a liberal arts subject. Not likely to be funded at any university… a point that the applicant may not understand, or may not want to have pointed out in media coverage.
While the NYU rep was probably trying to be helpful, he was just plain stupid. Rather than trying to explain it, the only response should have been ‘sorry, it is our policy to not offer fee waivers to [MA/Tisch?] applicants.’ (Yes, they used to do them on a hush-hush basis, but you don’t put that in an e-mail.)
Now due to the Rep’s stupidity (granted, trying to be helpful, but still stupid), NYU is embarrassed and had to change its policy. Of course, the new lenient policy will be changed back – and probably should be – in the next year or two, once the bad press dies down and the NYT no longer cares.
Maybe it’s just me, but when did it become acceptable to forward private communications to the whole world via twitter? This wasn’t the official notification, it was a personal response. One that made the huge mistake of being honest, rather than repeating legalistic drivel.
Yet more proof that nothing that one would not want communicated to the entire world should be said via any form of electronic communication, lest some narcissist decide they have the right to make it public.
He will get in and get will get funded. 1) NYU will cave to public pressure 2) Someone with money or status will choose not to see the truth in the poorly worded admissions response and come up or facilitate funding for the young artist.
If he was my son, I would advise getting a job and saving toward his goal. And yes, that may take many years.
When was it ever unacceptable to publicize communications from a business to a potential customer? I don’t think a business has a reasonable expectation that a customer would keep an objectionable communication secret.
I think most businesses don’t really have much of a reasonable expectation of privacy in general emails or correspondence with the public, especially in this internet age. A disgruntled person would try to turn it viral, as this applicant did, even if it may not be what I would have done or advised.
I don’t think the NYU faculty/admin member expected his note to be anything other than a personalized response to an inquiry, one which he probably penned in a moment of pith, seeking to shine a light of hard truth into the eyes of a young person with more stars than ‘stop’ or ‘slow’ signs.
The faculty/admin member seemed to lose sight of the potential response of someone for whom the first ‘no’ did not suffice.
I understand the sting the recipient felt as well, but not their response.