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An Open Letter from Dean Dean Fubar, Dean of Snafu University Dear Applicant: So you want to go to college? Congratulations on having a goal, even if it is the same goal as about a gazillion high school seniors all over the country and beyond. You are the raw ore from whence the precious metal of tomorrow’s future will be forged--rich and poor, black and white, ebony and ivory, black, brown and beige, russet and jonagold, olive-complected and peaches and cream and yellowish and pink and very dark, like well done toast, not to mention a few black Irish, who are actually sallow. And every one of you wants to go to college, usually some esteemed place in New England with venerable traditions and lousy weather. Sadly, there are so many applicants at every level of academic achievement that even the best students can’t be assured of getting into where they want to go. I take that back. Somewhere in some slum there’s a kid, trilingual with mid-1500 Boards and a good throwing arm, especially for a girl, and her skin is plaid. That kid is the total package and can write her own ticket. But every other college applicant is at risk of severe, possibly traumatic disappointment. The months ahead will involve both you and the institutions to which you apply in a vigorous roundelay of application, evaluation and selection, repeated with minor variations until you, the applicant, want to scream and weep. Some institutions require lengthy essays, others succinct statements of purpose. Some ask for word associations and ink blot tests; a few demand blood work. But just as each school must determine which applicants meet its needs, so must you determine which schools are right for you. We at Snafu do not kid ourselves. We know we are not the first choice of most of our applicants; we are rarely even the second. We are not one of the Ivy League, the Big Ten, the Little Three, the Seven Sisters or even the Fallback Five. We know this and yet, remarkably, we are not bitter. Why? I'll tell you: We were the first institution in the U.S. to offer courses in Pedicure History, Self-esteem for Vegetables and Speaking in Tongues. Snafu scholars have unraveled the mystery of who came after the Pre-Raphaelites and proven conclusively that neither Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Arthur Canon Doyle nor Sir Elton John could have written the works of Shakespeare. Over at Lugnut College of Hard-assed Science, the Arthur Treacher Fish’n’Pentium Chip Super-computer has identified 36,951 synonyms for Surf and Turf, and it's still humming away. Does that answer your question, Mr. or Ms. Smartass? We know who We are. In closing, I invite you to consider a simple question: What makes you think you have a snowball's chance in hell of making it into your first, second, or thirty-eighth choice school? If the only answer you can muster is a sweaty silence, check us out. We might be just what you're looking for. Sincerely, Dean Dean |
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