<p>I remember another story from my college days. One of our religion professors was telling us (in about 1970) that 30 years earlier he had made his applications for graduate school. One of his schools, actually the most presticious on the list, never sent him a notification of acceptance or rejection. (He did know that his application was complete.) He therefore did his graduate work at his second choice school which had accepted him. Twenty years later a secretary at the prestigious institution wrote him to tell him that they had been rearranging the file cabinets in the administration office and had found his application file. He had been accepted after all.
I like to believe that with modern communications this wouldn't happen and that people on both sides of the equation wouldn't be too polite to call to find out what happened.</p>