<p>"The Ivy League, which agrees to create a universal date and time each year to release decisions to undergraduate applicants made a stunning move in the wee hours of the morning of April 1st. Spokespeople from each school authored a press release announcing that they had amended the applicant decision time from April 1st at 5pm to April 1st at 5am. While disseminating the information to students may prove to be a challenge as the decision was made extremely last-minute, the league is advising that applicants should use the same login procedure as they would have performed 12 hours later, simply earlier.</p>
<p>"The league cites a number of reasons as to why the decision made sense; although one anonymous admissions counselor revealed the primary cause, "We were finished early this year. That's the clear reason. Usually we work late into the night and through the day before decisions are due, uploading the databases sometimes minutes before students login." When asked what contributed to the cause of the early completion, she replied, "Well, the schools got together when we first started receiving the applications, and we agreed to go on a Sam's Club run and to stock up on snacks this year. Traditionally, we spend 30% of our manpower in our admissions departments making snack runs to local supermarkets to purchase single bags of chips." Now, she says that buying in bulk actually led to a 6% increase in year-over-year snack consumption, and that 4% of the league's original purchase actually remained as a surplus, in addition to helping the admissions counselors finish their decisions at a record early time.</p>
<p>"Other reasons cited include protecting the online web servers that contain the decision information. A league spokesperson explained that the effects of tens of thousands of applicants logging onto the same server simultaneously has crashed severs in past years. With a 5am release, people will receive the news of the time change and check their decisions as they wake up, spreading out unique visitors counts over a far longer period of time and decreasing server strain. Furthermore, another counselor also added an element of fairness to equation. He supported the time shift as he believed that the earlier time would benefit the smarter students. "Those who are hungover and stoned the morning of the 1st will get their decisions, mostly rejections, after those applicants that awake bright and early to tackle the day. It's our small way of giving the latter group of students a small treat, acknowledging the work they do and saying that we, at admissions departments, appreciate them."</p>
<p>"As the admissions counselors left their offices shortly after the press release was made public, they could be audibly heard determining the location of the nearest bar and which staffers wanted to consume alcoholic beverages until they blacked out."</p>