| Vassar Accepts, Rejects 76 Students Saved From Hobo Life January 29, 2012 |
| The grim news came via e-mail: 76 students, who'd committed no crime other than the massive error in judgment of applying to Vassar College, were given their grim fate: they'd been accepted into the institution named "Most Familiar Surroundings" by a panel of former inmates at Attica Prison. Slowly, tearfully, they shared the news with friends and loved ones. Plans to build careers and families were quietly shelved. Bindles were packed. But suddenly, a reprieve: it turns out Vassar had sent out the cruel hoax by mistake. Vassar's Computer Science department objected to those who would criticize it for failing to prevent such a heartbreaking turn of events as making an 18-year-old briefly think the future was filled with nothing but four years of Poughkeepsie, followed by decades of government assistance. "That we sent an e-mail out at all represents a huge leap forward for our college," Professor Lucas O'Neill, chair of the Vassar Electrical Stuff program, wrote in a letter written in crayon on the back of an Elmo Learns To Read coloring book, and sent with the assistance of 27 other Vassar graduates. Like the dozens who survived the Hindenburg disaster, the Lucky 76 have taken stock of their lives, realizing just how fortunate they were to be spared the indignity of telling their neighbors they went to Vassar, only to be ridiculed by everyone else in that cardboard box. As the New York Times wrote, "Kareen Troussard, a student in Paris, said the episode might have saved her." Reporting truth like that almost makes up for Judith Miller AND Jayson Blair. |