<p>I was just looking over the "Best/Worst Admissions/Rejection Letters" thread and I was thinking, what content, phrasing, font, letterhead, etc, would make a rejection just a bit more bearable?</p>
<p>I mean acceptance letters can be as creative as they want and while there are some things that can make them better (some schools do personalized/ handwritten notes by admissions people, MIT send you a giant tube if you get in EA, etc) you get diminishing returns since if you got into a school you really wanted to go to you are already in a state of elation so it's hard to feel any better, and if you didn't care about that school, there's little they could say in the acceptance letter that would make the decision any more significant.</p>
<p>On the other hand, rejection letters kind of are a big deal from what I can see. Getting rejected from anywhere hurts, whether its because you were convinced you were going to go there for the next four years, your pride is hurt because you were sure you could get into that school, or even if you never expected to get into that "reach" school, you still clung to that hope. Regardless, when reading the letter there's a lot of room to add insult to injury (or perhaps just insult to insult) but I feel like there can be room to leave you feeling not quite as bad as you could be feeling.</p>
<p>So, yeah. What exactly would you like to see in a rejection letter? Maybe they could stay away from the overused line "Thank you for applying... there was a large number of qualified applicants, etc."
Personally I'd like them to send be a chocolate with the rejection letter or maybe have a local alumni go around hand delivering rejections while offering a hug to those who need it.</p>