<p>Hi,
Just wanted to post the response we received from our daughter’s application to Brandeis that we found a bit tacky. She applied early decision and was rejected. Disappointing but no problem there as it was a reach school. However, the way in which she received the letter was on a partially legible piece of paper addressed to “dear applicant.” They didn’t even bother to mail merge her name.
Are we out of line to find that insensitive at best? I mean, couldn’t they give her the dignity of using her name? And please… use clear, black print on your stationary.
We wrote to them write after the event to respectfully suggest a more personal response for future applicants.The admissions office didn’t even bother to reply.</p>
<p>I applied RD but I agree, that is a bit insensitive, especially to somebody who was willing to enter a binding agreement to that school as a top choice.</p>
<p>Sorry about the rejection and I hope your daughter finds the perfect place even if it’s not Brandeis!</p>
<p>Thanks so much. Yes…these things are often all for the best.</p>
<p>I think you’re a bit bent-out-of-shape because it was a rejection.
Ask yourself, if she has been accepted and the letter was also addressed to “dear applicant” would you still be complaining?</p>
<p>Best of luck anyway.</p>
<p>Agree, they could have at least put her name & address in the letter itself.
Sometimes the admissions office doesn’t do things too well, being understaffed or get a student on a Work Study Job to send out these letters!</p>
<p>okracollard: so what’s your point? I don’t attend Brandeis, but I do have many friends who attend or have graduated from there, and there are only nice thing things said about the school. I think you are a little bitter as a mom that your child didn’t make it there. Your child didn’t get in, and, if it wasn’t his first choice, then, why to even bother with these petty details.</p>
<p>Don’t understand why folks are getting on okracollard’s back.</p>
<p>I agree that a half-legible letter with the salutation “Dear Applicant” is disrespectful to the applicant, who showed the school some love (and probably also ponied up an application fee of…what, $55).</p>
<p>And although I wouldn’t have written to Brandeis about it, I don’t see okracollard as having the chip on her shoulder that others perceive. She said frankly that Brandeis was a reach for her daughter, and she said without any trace of bitterness I could see that it may all be the best.</p>
<p>Most of us know Brandeis has been having money troubles. I suspect–admittedly, without actually knowing anything–that this was a pretty ham-fisted attempt to economize.</p>
<p>Okracollard, I hope that your daughter winds up someplace she loves, and that it loves her back.</p>
<p>Tacky and cold, especially for an ED applicant. I agree. Why is it always the impossible schools (HYPS) that seem the most courteous even to the lowliest of their rejects, while the middling or lower schools seemingly go out of their way to ensure rejections come with a bit of sting involved. One day, perhaps not too distant from now, your D will have the choice to employ a Brandeis person vs. someone else, and just may remember the 'tude that Brandeis displayed towards her (and, by extension, incorporated in the person she interviewed). It’s just this sort of small stuff that erodes a university’s goodwill and reputation over time, so that over time you end up where . . . Brandeis has ended up: selling the family silver to survive . . .</p>
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<p>Well, that would certainly be a good way to earn this slight retroactively.</p>
<p>Sikorsky: That’s why HYPS try not to 'dis people. Lots more people went to UofState than to HYPS and will always remember, if they applied to HYPS, how they were treated – and those people hire HYPS grads.</p>
<p>No, I disagree. I think those colleges reject people courteously because it’s the correct thing to do. And I think it would be a very small person who would nurse a grudge against a university for years, and then take it out on a graduate who had nothing to do with the original offense.</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>After reading the comments, I want to reiterate that we were not motivated by bitterness. We know Brandeis seems to be a dynamic place with many creative, wonderful students there …that’s why our daughter applied ED in the first place! </p>
<p>It was a relatively small infraction on the college’s part; nevertheless the haphazard response could easily have been avoided. Many of these young people put their heart and soul into their applications, often writing about loaded subjects with personal significance.</p>
<p>Of course there will always be rejections…that goes without saying. That’s the job of the admissions committee. Just hoping to create awareness that admissions staff should try to respond(positive or negative) in a way that gives dignity to all who put themselves out there.
Enough said!<br>
And btw, of course she won’t hold a grudge against future Brandeis students with whom she comes into contact. How ridiculous would that be…?
If, on the other hand, it’s an admissions officer…(kidding!!!)
Thanks all! Glad to have stimulated some controversy!</p>
<p>Oh…and thanks especially to Placido and Sikorsky for your support!</p>
<p>Good for you okra, you did the right thing. Obviously the application process is a trying time for young adults and as you accuraltely note, there will be inevitable disappointments. Admissions officers should (and generally do) go out of their way to soften the blow. Hopefully your note will help Brandeis understand the issue from a different, but important, perspective.</p>
<p>Even though I graduated from a leading US medical school and am a doctor today, in 1968 I was the worst slacker my Jesuit prep school had ever seen for my first three years when I was last in my class with a 1.6 GPA at the end of my junior year. I applied to a number of non-selective Catholic colleges and the first one I heard from, The University of Dayton, sent me a very personalized letter. On the standard rejection form letter someone in the admissions office there had prominently handwritten in pen: “Extremely poor high school record”. Do they really think I didn’t know that? Even today after all these years when I think of it that gratuitous slap on the rejection letter still rankles.</p>