Northwestern University did not learn

Hanna
Mon, 03 Jun 2013 02:23:18 +0000

I thought the joke was very funny and perfectly appropriate for sharing around an office. I’m encouraged that an admissions dean has such a keen sense of humor – I’ll bear that in mind when I’m coaching NU applications in the future. People who call admissions and use profanity or make threats merit this kind of satire. There is never any justification for abusive calls of this kind, and in my experience, they don’t have anything to do with the predictability of the admissions decision or the kindness of the denial letter. They have to do with the caller being a jerk.

While I understand why the university chose to apologize, I think those calling for the apology or comparing this to the Penn scandal are off base. Reacting to a pattern of abuse from customers with an on-point joke is miles away from publicly exposing a single student’s essay to ridicule. I wish that we lived in a public relations world where a university could just say, “Everyone who calls to swear at us confirms the correctness of the admissions decision in that case. Be sure to let us know which lucky institution can look forward to a lifetime of association with you.”