Since nobody else will come to the defense of the poor kids who were belatedly rejected from the UW: I certainly hope the UW is asking for letters explaining the students’ drop in academic performance rather than booting them out forthwith. Because the summer after my senior year, I received a threatening letter from the University of Virginia telling me to explain my D in “Contemporary Problems.” It made me cry, not only because I’m a crybaby, but because it was way too late to get in anywhere else (except maybe SCCC).

So I wrote a tearful screed explaining that “Contemporary Problems” was in fact a theology class taught by a Sister Marie Antoinette (name changed only slightly to protect the guilty), who, among other things, required our (all-female) class to “plan our marriages,” including role-playing a session with a parish marriage counselor and writing a homily about the sacredness of the marital union in the eyes of God. We also read a ridiculous novel about a nurse in Saigon under the pretense of studying the Vietnam war, and had to pen a prayer in verse—mine included the still-cherished couplet “orphans need help / dogs have to whelp”. Needless to say, I wasn’t rewarded for my sabotaging efforts.

Anyway, UVa came around, especially with the help of a fresh crop of AP scores. May the UW humbly accept contrary evidence as well.