COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:Rejection the hard way

Did you go to school? I did. Through the fourth grade anyway, then I had to leave to work the fields. It was hard. But that’s another story. Not only do the students at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa go to school, but now they know they’re doing it in the right place.

This week, U.S. News & World Report released its annual “America’s Best Colleges” — a must-read survey for prospective students and their soon-to-be impoverished parents — and Vanguard University was ranked fourth among all the baccalaureate universities in the West.

A baccalaureate university focuses on undergraduate work with degrees in liberal arts and professional fields — like you didn’t know that. This year’s thumbs-up from U.S. News & World Report confirms, yet again, that Vanguard is not only one of the best small universities in these United States, but its music program competes with any school of music or conservatory in the country.

There was also exciting news from the south, with UCI ranked 44 of the top 50 universities in the entire country, which is large.

Actually, there was quite a pile-up in lane 44, with UCI, UC Santa Barbara, University of Texas at Austin and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in a photo finish.

To give these rankings some perspective, keep in mind there are more than 2,500 four-year colleges in the country, which makes for a lot of iPods, text messaging and classes on the History of Indigenous Cultures on the Asian Sub-Continent, which explains all the iPods and text messaging.

All terribly interesting, but as per usual, my mind began to wander.

“If these are the best universities,” my mind said, wandering, aimlessly, which is why they call it wandering, “what are the worst?”

I couldn’t find any serious listing of the worst universities in the United States, but I did find an interesting item in the San Francisco Examiner, which is a newspaper in San Francisco, which is straight up and to the left, and boy is that an understatement.

Anyway, according to the Examiner, one Bay Area high school invites its students to bring in their rejection letters so they can share and cry and laugh about them in class — impromptu group therapy for the college-bound as it were.

In the Shortest Letter Overall category, Cal Poly won away with a rejection letter that was literally one sentence, and a pretty short sentence at that.

Rejection letters from Harvard walked away with the Insincerity Award for their “three wishes” approach. After giving the aspiring Ivy Leaguer the bad news, the Harvard letters wish they were writing with a different decision, wish it were possible to admit every worthy applicant then close by offering their best wishes.

Oh, OK. You have a nice day, too.

The competition for the “Break My Heart with the Fewest Words” award was fierce, with scores of rejection letters starting with “We regret...”

Northwestern lunged across the finish line with its one-word opener, “After...” End of story, no need to read on, there is no sentence that can follow “after” and be good news. “After receiving your application,” “After reviewing your application carefully,” “After careful consideration,” doesn’t matter, as soon as you see “after,” it’s over.

The “Go Ahead, Break My Heart, Twice” award went to Cornell, which sends out rejections by e-mail that close by saying a hard copy with more details will be sent by mail. In other words, this is just to let you know we don’t want you, full details on why we don’t want you to follow. I wonder what the subject line on the e-mail reads: “Cornell...You...Not Happening.”

But the Palme d’Or for the Leona Helmsley-Marie Antoinette-Cruella de Vil rejection letter was scooped up by Reed College in Portland, Ore.

After weeks of waiting for the pro forma notice that Reed had received his application, an applicant sent a brief but polite letter to make sure they had.

A few days later, he got his answer when someone in the admissions office mailed him a copy of what was apparently an interoffice memo with just the student’s name and this handwritten note on it … “He’s a deny.”

The second person is bad enough, but being rejected in the third person is just cold.

So major props to Vanguard University and the Anteaters, and high school students of America take heart.

There is a soul mate and a perfect school out there for everyone and being rejected isn’t so bad, as long as it’s not by Cornell or Reed College.

Then it stings like a you-know-what.

I gotta go.