What if you get rejected?

March 20, 2006 11:13 AM

Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, MA, has announced that it will do away with traditional acceptance letters and will instead email accepted students a link to an acceptance podcast on iTunes.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow (40 comments total)

"It isn't just about the latest flavor, and it's not about flash"

only it is to a certain degree. So, you have to have itunes to be accepted? Kind of arrogant to assume everyone you accept is set up that way, even if they can afford it. I would assume that thee is an opt-in/opt-out for this. (or at least hope so)
posted by edgeways at 11:18 AM on March 20, 2006

Dear prospective student: If you don't have a computer, please consider this a pre-emptive rejection notice. Fucking luddite.
posted by Plutor at 11:18 AM on March 20, 2006

lol dorks! what will the rejection podcast sound like? maybe a little "wah wah wahhhhh!!!" with the trombone?
posted by tweak at 11:18 AM on March 20, 2006

A podcast? You can't frame that and put it on the wall.
posted by Pontius Pilate at 11:19 AM on March 20, 2006

tweak, rejection emails actually link you to a Google search.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 11:26 AM on March 20, 2006

By this time next year, all acceptance letters will be private messages in MySpace.
posted by mathowie at 11:27 AM on March 20, 2006

I think it's nice whenever an institution helps you to avoid wasting your time by stamping a nice, big scarlet letter onto itself.
posted by cribcage at 11:31 AM on March 20, 2006

By this time next year, all acceptance letters will be private messages in MySpace.

Or colleges will have MySpace pages and add accepted students as "friends".
posted by billysumday at 11:31 AM on March 20, 2006

God, that is stupid.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:32 AM on March 20, 2006

It'll probably have 'My Humps' playing as background music, too. Fuckin' jackasses.
posted by NationalKato at 11:34 AM on March 20, 2006

Rejection notices will be provided through the use of smoke signals.
posted by Bugbread at 11:38 AM on March 20, 2006

Or colleges will have MySpace pages and add accepted students as "friends".

People with full-ride scholarships will be in their Top 8.
posted by danb at 11:41 AM on March 20, 2006

Damn! So much for the plan of submitting the homework in calligraphy from the goose quill pens.
posted by rough ashlar at 11:43 AM on March 20, 2006

Well, letters take, like, forever to, like, print out and stuff, and, like, put them in an envelope and, like, remember how much postage stamps are and everything...
posted by kozad at 11:43 AM on March 20, 2006

A podcast? You can't frame that and put it on the wall.

I'm from Fitchburg, MA and used to live a quarter mile from campus. Trust me, nobody's framing their acceptance letter to FSC.
posted by 27 at 11:49 AM on March 20, 2006

Yeah, my cousin went to high school with a kid who pounded out his whole FSC application in the cafeteria during lunch period. He got accepted, I'm not sure if he attended.
posted by parallax7d at 11:57 AM on March 20, 2006

Lame.
posted by pmurray63 at 11:59 AM on March 20, 2006

27: if you live a quarter mile from FSC, I wouldn't admit it. FSC is the only part of the three mile radius around the campus where you can walk without seeing a crack house. Actually, I take that back, I think you can see a few from the leaky library.

FSC has a long history of rolling out technical stuff to students, that really sounds foreward thinking at the time but isn't. They rolled out internet access to all their dorm rooms in 1996 or 1997 (long before most places did), yet in 1995 when I left, they had a sum total of 10 unix boxes in the college.

I don't miss the place or the "city".
posted by inthe80s at 12:07 PM on March 20, 2006

inthe80s: Key words - "used to" (almost 10 years ago now).

It was bad then, but not as bad as you describe. Glad to hear that all the "neighborhood improvement" effort paid off though.
posted by 27 at 12:18 PM on March 20, 2006

Did podcasts just jump the shark, or was it iTunes?
posted by clearlynuts at 12:22 PM on March 20, 2006

Both.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 12:26 PM on March 20, 2006

They should just post the damn things on Youtube, then recipients can do a mashup of getting accepted and jumping off a roof into an open fire or something. "Look at me! I'm a colleg...AAAAAAHH!!".
posted by Ohdemah at 12:48 PM on March 20, 2006

Painfully lame.
posted by phrontist at 12:57 PM on March 20, 2006

Or colleges will have MySpace pages and add accepted students as "friends".

Hey, Harvard! Thanks for the add!
posted by Spatch at 12:58 PM on March 20, 2006

email acceptance: convienent and polite (because you get the news quicker)

email acceptance to an itunes podcast: uberlame.
posted by delmoi at 1:18 PM on March 20, 2006

e-mail acceptance: flawed because the USPS is more reliable than spam filtering, random mail server (either end or routes in between) issues, etc.

:-(

We just had a good laugh about this in the office. What's the next evolution of this, tuition payments through the iTMS after you download the acceptance podcast? Redeem gift certificates for credit hours or 30,000 winning Pepsi caps for four years!

NO WAY THIS CAN FAIL. GO TEAM INTERNET.
posted by secret about box at 1:22 PM on March 20, 2006

Will the podcast have Monkey News?
posted by mullacc at 1:22 PM on March 20, 2006

k, I can see sending an email saying you where accepted, as long as it had a physical letter to follow as well as the email. I could even see sending a link to a NON proprietary standard format video congratulating you on getting accepted, all of these things being an enhancement of current systems rather than a replacement of them.
posted by edgeways at 1:28 PM on March 20, 2006

Their registrars office will be staffed by nigerians and will require an upfront tuition deposit.
posted by srboisvert at 2:59 PM on March 20, 2006

Students will be frisked and searched for a stylish iPod case. If none is found, you may directly report to the nearest community college for a public humiliation ceremony. G'day.
posted by cellphone at 3:12 PM on March 20, 2006

What if you get rejected?

You get this.
posted by mcwetboy at 3:15 PM on March 20, 2006

No, I think Fitchburg just jumped the shark.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 3:22 PM on March 20, 2006

I hear Bridgewater St. is now delivering their acceptance letters via escaped mental patient...
posted by SweetJesus at 3:33 PM on March 20, 2006

Maybe if the French Maids did it . . .
posted by spock at 4:47 PM on March 20, 2006

All coursework is downloaded to your 'pod and you immediately receive credit if your account is active. You
graduate within weeks and your parents are e-mailed a picture of you in graduation robes with your head photoshopped into a generic, public domain graduation photo.

The crap part is they still charge you for robe rental.
posted by longsleeves at 6:07 PM on March 20, 2006

Assuming an audio acceptance is, um, a good idea: why a podcast? Are they going to send you weekly podcasts about next fall? Or is this just using "podcasting" as a clumsy synonym for "audio over the internets"?

I'd make a snarky Linux users go home/iTunes comment. But they seem to actually have a MS in computer science program. But its GRE requirement is "50th percentile and above." So, I just laugh.
posted by oxonium at 6:40 PM on March 20, 2006

The only reason I know of Fitchburg is because my old indie rock band played at a metal bar there a few years ago. The Dennys was nice.

This however, is a bad idea.
posted by drezdn at 7:07 PM on March 20, 2006

So is this the school where they teach livejournalism?
posted by keijo at 2:18 AM on March 21, 2006

As stupid as their idea is, I sincerely hope they play the theme from Rocky during the acceptance podcast.

Also, I think the official "jump the shark" moment (for me at least) of all things podcasting came with the recent advent of the term "godcasting."
posted by duffell at 4:18 AM on March 21, 2006

Why is everyone so negative? Maybe a lot of their applicants are illiterate.
posted by Skwirl at 9:43 AM on March 21, 2006