<p>I was very upset after being waitlisted at bates (my top choice), but this thread made me so happy that I wasn’t rejected.</p>
<p>Makes one wonder if the Bates Adcom could “do sound work at Bates” themselves…since many colleges hire their own grads to work there. </p>
<p>Ditto G’town’s letter. Functional and nothing more. Fortunately dgt tossed it - I think in the wood stove - and said, “who cares”. She was happy with her other acceptances.</p>
<p>“The deans were obliged to select from among candidates who clearly could do sound work at Bates,” the letter says.
Pearls is correct - college bound or educated posters, read it again, it says they had far too many applicants who were fully qualified to be successful at Bates, and they could not take them all. Therefore, the Deans we obliged to select from the large pool of qualified applicants. They just did not word it WELL. I had to read it twice, and I know when you read the rejection letters, you only scan them. I felt so sad when my D read a rejection letter (clear in my mind) and asked me if it meant she did not get in. It did say something like 'we cannot offer you admission at this time." So she thought it might mean they could offer her admission later??? So sad.</p>
<p>As to the not even a rejection letter syndrome, I know someone who also applied and got no decision only to be told (after inquiry) that s/he was waitlisted for a grad program.</p>
<p>This article makes me thrilled that I didn’t apply to Bates! My nicest rejections came from Colgate and Notre Dame. Colgate’s was the nicest letter possible to write and still reject the applicant. My sister studied there for one term and a good friend graduated from there. They mentioned that in the rejection. </p>
<p>Dartmouth’s rejection stank, however.<br>
My sister graduated from Dartmouth 10 months ago (June, 2008) and I fell in love with them while sleeping outside all night on their Green saving seats for graduation. It was a one-sided love affair, though, and they rejected me with only an online login. No paper letter. No kind words to cushion the rejection. So much for being in the Dartmouth “family.”</p>
<p>The article was great and rejection letters are horrid.</p>
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<p>That’s what I thought too! Glad someone else was on the same train of thought…</p>
<p>Harvard’s really was nice though. I’m glad they got credit for that. It made me feel much better after reading some of the less friendly ones.</p>
<p>“I had to pick her up off the floor!”</p>
<p>ouch Penn…way to get students’ hopes up and then CRUSH them…
not cool.</p>
<p>After investigating further, this thread has made me add Mount Allison (in Canada) to my list of probable applications, after reading about their polite and personal rejection letters. Figured I’d mention it since nobody else has mentioned the school yet, I think.</p>
<p>As an alum of Bates and a parent of an accepted student (who will turn Bates down), I have nothing but good things to say about the admissions office. they are an encouraging and kind group of people.Mr. Mitchell is very nice and I think a graduate of Williams, I read the rejection as saying that you the rejectee were in a group who was very capable of doing sound work.</p>
<p>“A couple of years ago the weirdest and most confusing acceptance/rejection my DS received was the one from Carnegie Mellon. He got a fat envelope and he was accepted BUT not to the major of his choice and it said don’t even think about transferring.”</p>
<p>Something very similar happened to me when I applied to colleges several years ago. I received a fat envelope from Syracuse University and opened it to find out I’d been accepted but not to my first or second choice school. Instead, they’d placed me in the college of human ecology, a school in which I’d expressed zero interest.</p>
<p>I actually attended Syracuse’s admitted student day after the “acceptance” (I’d otherwise been only admitted to safeties and was desperate to go anywhere else), and at the department advising session I met several other irate students and parents who’d have the same thing done to their applications.</p>
<p>It’s not just that one sentence in the Bates rejection (I agree with the positive interpretation of it), it’s more like the overall tone of the letter and the impression it leaves. Coupled with anecdotal experience with the admissions office, it left a sour taste in my mouth and I know a few of my friends were similarly put out. Just my experience, of course.</p>
<p>Isn’t one of the dorms at Bates a converted old hotel where some young lady was murdered while taking a shower a number of years ago?</p>
<p>Dude, who cares if some letters are better than others? you were REJECTED</p>
<p>this is a rough year.</p>
<p>Ah, but what did the Bates Dean of Admissions say when asked about the criticism? He said that he doesn’t see counseling recipients as the role of college deans. That’s the problem, and the reason I would be having a talk with him if I were the President of Bates.</p>
<p>I agree with # 50. It doesn’t cost Bates anything to be nice to the rejected students. Why it has to hurt more than needed?</p>
<p>I recently attended BU’s information session and it seemed they intentionally misrepresented their acceptance rate–blurring the lines between acceptance and ultimate enrollment. So much for intellectual and academic integrity. It really turned us off. To quote a Seinfeld episode (the Pez one), “Now, I’m breaking up with you!”</p>