Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

Everyone involved:

I have requested and completed an application for admission to your school. After going through such a bizzare and painful ordeal, I have taken it upon myself to correct your procedures.

The easiest way to understand my comments it to look at the process from another angle. I pay you to work for me. Period. Not only tuition, but I pay taxes, you get money from the government, end of story. Now that that is clear, understand this: you should do your best to make things easier for me.

Let's start with the application forms. There are too many things required to be filled out on these forms. Why, in the name of all that's holy, do you need an Emergency Contact for an application?! This is somehow required? It should affect my application status? Why do you ask me the same information on each form? You had it on the 1st page. Your people are paid at least minimum wage (that I'm paying), let them copy it over.

But perhaps I am going to fast for you. Let me try this approach. I will now tell you all the information you need.
1st page should go something like this:
1: To what College/Department are you applying?
2: What degree are you seeking?
3: Are you a US citizen?
4: Social Security Number
5: Date of Birth
6: Sign and Date

Page 2:
Please write down your academic goals, including reasons for choosing this school, your research plans, etc. Please sign and date this sheet.

Page 3:
1: Letters of Recommendation
Please have 3 Letters of Recommendation sent directly to the Department you to which you are applying. There are no specific forms as all faculty involved in this process (both writing and reviewing) not living in a mustard jar know the deal. Please have them include your name and SS# on their evaluation.

2: Resume
Please include a current resume. You'll notice this should include almost everything we really need to know (name, previous schools, degrees conferred, work experience, etc).

3: Transcripts/GRE Scores
Please have 1 copy of offcial transcripts from all previous schools and GRE scores sent in.
You'll notice we only need 1. That's because even if we need more, we actually have a copying machine and oddly enough we trust ourselves not to forge your transcripts. And heaven knows, since we are trying to help you, we'd rather pay the $0.05 to copy it, than have you pay $5 to get another.

4: Financial Aid
You do not need to fill out a separate form for this. We are not stupid, we know you need money. In this wonderful day and age of the modern computer, we are easliy able to cross reference you academic, ethnic, military, and social criteria to any and all available aid without you needing to rewrite it. If we offer you aid you do not want, you can always reject it.

Page 4:
The END! Amazingly enough, mainly by having your name and SS#, we know almost everything about you anyway (including you dogs favorite food). We are glad you have taken the 15 minutes required to fill out this form.

Currently we have the following submissions:
+ Story #1

Author's Note: A friend of mine did reply to shed some light on the 'Emergency Contact' situation.

"It's a standard clause I'm sure. They had that on at least one of the applications I filled out. I asked about it and they said that at least once each year somebody accidently seals themselves inside the envelope. By the time it reaches the school of course they are quite dead, and the contact information helps them find someone to come get the body before it gets tenure. Just try to get rid of a dead body with tenure. That's a big chore." - name omitted for protection