In April 1974, seven of us at the Hill School in Pennsylvania were waiting to hear Stanford’s decision on our applications. Letters from other colleges were beginning to arrive, but nothing yet from the Farm.
Well, maybe the mail takes longer from the West Coast.
Then six letters arrived: five rejections and one acceptance. Mine was not among them. Was that good news or bad?
The next day came and went without a letter.
On the third day, my mailbox was still empty.
I was going nuts. Did I forget to send in the application? No, my sister hand-delivered it the day before the deadline. Or did she?
I visited Mr. Woodward, our school’s college adviser, for the 14th time. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Have you heard anything? Could they have lost my application?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ll try to call them again.”
The fourth day: misery. I’d been rejected by Harvard and accepted at Cal. But I really, really, really wanted to go to Stanford. Where was that &#$*! letter?
That evening, I filed into the dining hall and bumped into a friend, who was grinning at me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You got into Stanford.”
“What? You’re kidding. How do you know?”
“Mr. Woodward called them. He’s looking for you now.”
I saw the counselor across the room and made a beeline. He was grinning, too. Yes, it was true! He said something about a bag containing thousands of admission letters that vanished after being mailed on April 1, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I got into Stanford!
A few days later I received the replacement acceptance letter with a note of explanation and apology from Fred Hargadon, dean of admissions. Dean Fred is a good writer. His note—titled “OUCH!”—was cheerful and diplomatic, but you could tell he was both embarrassed by the disturbance and furious with the Postal Service. The final paragraph read:
After having worked hard to get the letters in the mail early this year, you can imagine our disappointment. You can also imagine what one hot-tempered Irishman of a Dean sounds like at this time. Hang in there.
Several weeks later the original finally arrived, so I actually have two acceptance letters from Stanford. I wish I could cash in the second one today and go back for four more years.
—Steven Hailey, ’78
