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BELL-BOTTOM BLUES: Cartoon
from May 1974 Stanford Observer depicts
high schooler awaiting lost admission letter.
Stanford Observer |
In April 1974, seven of
us at the Hill School in Pennsylvania were waiting to
hear Stanford’s decision on our applications.
Letters from other colleges were beginning to arrive,
but nothing yet from the Farm.
Well, maybe the mail takes longer from the West Coast.
Then six letters arrived: five rejections and one acceptance.
Mine was not among them. Was that good news or bad?
The next day came and went without a letter.
On the third day, my mailbox was still empty.
I was going nuts. Did I forget to send in the application?
No, my sister hand-delivered it the day before the deadline.
Or did she?
I visited Mr. Woodward, our school’s college
adviser, for the 14th time. “What’s going
on?” I asked. “Have you heard anything?
Could they have lost my application?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ll
try to call them again.”
The fourth day: misery. I’d been rejected by
Harvard and accepted at Cal. But I really, really, really
wanted to go to Stanford. Where was that &#$*! letter?
That evening, I filed into the dining hall and bumped
into a friend, who was grinning at me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You got into Stanford.”
“What? You’re kidding. How do you know?”
“Mr. Woodward called them. He’s looking
for you now.”
I saw the counselor across the room and made a beeline.
He was grinning, too. Yes, it was true! He said something
about a bag containing thousands of admission letters
that vanished after being mailed on April 1, but I wasn’t
listening anymore. I got into Stanford!
A few days later I received the replacement acceptance
letter with a note of explanation and apology from Fred
Hargadon, dean of admissions. Dean Fred is a good writer.
His note—titled “OUCH!”—was
cheerful and diplomatic, but you could tell he was both
embarrassed by the disturbance and furious with the
Postal Service. The final paragraph read:
After having worked hard to get the letters in
the mail early this year, you can imagine our disappointment.
You can also imagine what one hot-tempered Irishman
of a Dean sounds like at this time. Hang in there.
Several weeks later the original finally arrived, so
I actually have two acceptance letters from Stanford.
I wish I could cash in the second one today and go back
for four more years.
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