UC Davis just sent out its letters of admission status to all the students who applied to come here next year. Now we are dealing with the phone calls from students/parents who were not admitted and want to know why. We're also hearing from students who were admitted and have questions. This is rather normal and expected and we get our share of unhappy denials that just can't understand how they weren't accepted. I won't go into details on why students don't get in but the worst calls are from the parents who care way too much for students that usually take it in stride. Of course, there are students that go from bummed to devastated and they can tug at you on the inside but it is hard to empathize with an unreasonable parent who won't listen to the facts.

To make things worse, emails are also sent out and the status of the application is posted online. To access this information, the student needs a unique ID number that was sent to them about a month ago. Quite a few of these students never received their email with the information. Since the emails were sent to approximately 30,000 applicants, it was done in bulk by groups of 1000. Unfortunately, many of the student accounts are on Yahoo and Hotmail and the spam filters read the emails as bulk mail and separated the email out into the trash.

Now we have to deal with all the people who call in and need their ID number because they just have to know if they got in or not TODAY! "My friends all know and they got their ID number!" People are frantic and refuse to wait a few days. So technology has made it easier for many people but it also brings out the idiots who can't handle patience when their ineptitude shows up. And now, when we have technical difficulties, people go even crazier.

Questions I have:
Why didn't they contact us a month ago when they saw their friends getting emails from us?
Why do parents have to know before their kid does?
How come I could wait for snail mail 10 years ago but they can't wait 5 minutes for an email to arrive?
And why have a fit when it doesn't?
How did these people get into college when they can't even read the email before calling me with questions that are answered in said email?

I know the answers to all of these questions already: People are dumb.

Fer"Boo Hoo"rick