Yale stops mailing rejection letters to save costs

Applicants to Yale University will no longer receive a rejection letter in the mail, the Yale Daily News reported.

To save paper and reduce mailing costs, Yale University will not mail rejection notices if the prospective student has checked the decision online. Yale announced the plan last week in an effort to cut expenses after the university’s endowment decreased this year.

In the article, Yale Dean of Admissions Jeff Brenzel said the change will save the university from printing and mailing more than 20,000 rejection letters.

He added that 95 percent of applicants check the decision online within 72 hours after they are posted.

Yale will still send paper letters notifying students if they are accepted or placed on the waiting list. If students do not check the admission decision online, the university will send them a letter regardless of the decision.

Harvard tradition turns dangerous

River Run — a long-standing Harvard tradition in which students write the name of their desired housing on cardboard boats to sail down the Charles River — ended with the presence of the Cambridge Fire Department and Massachusetts State Police this year, The Harvard Crimson reported.

The event began with students launching their creations into the river. Students then started to drench their boats with flammable solutions like Axe Body Spray and nail polish remover, which drew the attention of firefighters and police. Some then lit their boats on fire.

Officials warned the students to leave the area.

In retaliation, Harvard freshman Kelsey Koff and her group of friends disobeyed the orders.

“We went all the way down to the other end of the river and doused our boat in nail polish remover,” Koff said.

Eligible students denied acceptance to California universities

Students who would normally be accepted to universities in California may now receive more rejection letters than acceptances, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

The drastic cut in admission acceptances is a result of the initiative to decrease enrollment in California universities by 10,000 full-time students — a decision made in light of the state’s economic crisis.

Pat Lopes Harris, a spokeswoman for San Jose State University, said determining which students to reject is hard on admissions officials.

"It comes with great difficulty because the same staff who normally works to figure out which people get in now has to turn around and figure out which people need to be excluded," Harris said in the article.

The new admission rejection policy comes at a time when California universities are experiencing a 10-percent increase in enrollment.