Alexa Harrington over at EducatedNation refers us to a SF Examiner story about a San Francisco psych class which decided to have a competition with their rejection letters, ranking them for superlatives like “Least original rejection” and “Least number of words you need to read before you know you are being rejected.”

The story concludes by offering some tips on how to soften the blow for students; the whole read is funny and novel, but this last part struck me as particularly keen. Patrick Mattimore writes:

Students have crafted psychological tips colleges might adopt instead of telling applicants about the other “talented and highly qualified” students they rejected or the fact that the admissions office is comforted in knowing that “you will have many other fine choices” of colleges. Assuaging the colleges’ guilt is not what the process is about.

The best student sensitivity suggestion this year advised admissions’ offices to adopt the relationship break-up line, “it’s not you, it’s us.” The recipient of “He’s a deny” sent a raft of improvement suggestions to Reed and concluded his five pages of suggestions by letting the school know that they should feel “free to send apology or ‘he’s an admit’” letter. He got the apology only.

No mention of Yale, though Harvard was included for “most obsequious while maintaining utter insincerity.” Kudos to them, I suppose.