Northwestern University did not learn

Pizzagirl
Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:28:30 +0000

A poorly-designed voicemail or the absence of water bottles on a hot day aren’t deliberately designed to offend. They are oversights. They aren’t abusive or deliberately meant to provoke the way that “go to hell, you @#$#$!” or “you’ll be hearing from my lawyer, you piece of @#$(*” are.

A college may deserve to be “marked down” because its voicemail or website or visitors’ lounge aren’t as customer-friendly as they maybe could be. Those are specific areas of improvement that can be made, if the college is made aware. The college can improve the voicemail, the website, the accommodations at the visitors’ lounge. But an adcom doesn’t deserve to be cursed at because some entitled parent thinks that he can now get his kid into a school by threatening to call the lawyer or the president or the senator. The “improvement” that these parents want is simply - my kid gets guaranteed admission. And it doesn’t work that way.