Grad school reply No. 2

Dear Robert Scott Heaton,

We have had time to review thoroughly your application, the supporting papers submitted in your behalf and the recommendation made by the department to which you have applied. I regret to inform you that on the basis of this joint consideration, we are unable to approve your admission to graduate study. Graduate education is characterized by extremely small classes and close mentoring by faculty. As a result, programs have only a limited number of available positions. Each year we receive many more applications than can be accommodated; consequently, many highly qualified applicants are often excluded.

Should you have questions concerning your application, I would suggest that you write directly to the Director of Graduate Studies in the department (please consult http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/grad/ for their address) or to me.

With best wishes for the future.

Grad school reply No. 1

Or should I say "'No' No. 1" . . .:

Dear Mr. Heaton:

Thank you for applying to our Graduate School for the 2009-2010 academic year. While I assure you that the materials you submitted were carefully reviewed by the faculty in the Department of English and by the Graduate School, I regret to inform you that the department did not recommend your admission for the coming year.

The number of places available at Princeton for entering graduate students is extremely limited and we cannot offer admission to all who are well-qualified. Indeed, many departments consistently have applicants who would be admitted without hesitation if the resources were available. Our decisions take into account not only the applicants’ merits, but also the suitability of the department’s programs to the candidates’ expressed interests. Our goal is to achieve a sound match between the strengths of our programs and the interests of the relatively small number of outstanding students that can be accommodated.

We chose to advise you of our decision via email on the assumption that a timely response would outweigh the informality of this means of communication. I would be happy to provide a formal letter upon request.

I wish you success in your plans for graduate study and thank you for considering Princeton University.

Come, ye children of the Lord

I had a lovely day at church, observing all the funny things the kids do.

First, during sacrament meeting, we were sitting at the front of the cultural hall (just behind the last row of the chapel seats). When it came time for the actual blessing and passing of the sacrament, there was a little girl just a few rows back that was singing, quite loudly, "Come, Ye Children of the Lord." Since she's only . . . three or so, she didn't seem to know the actual words, but she knew the melody perfectly. Well, I think once she got through the whole song once, she kept looping back into the chorus. But because of the wood floor we were on, it echoed forward pretty well. So we saw people in front of us turning around to see who it was, since it was going on for a few minutes. But nobody that I saw seemed bothered by it; we were all smiling at the beautiful voice, and I'm sure her parents were glad that she wasn't doing a multitude of more disruptive things.

The second funny thing was watching two brothers (step-brothers, actually), about 8 and 9, as they "reverently" left the chapel for a bathroom break. As they've been drilled in Primary, they folded their arms as they walked. But their manner of doing it is what made me chuckle. Rather than holding their forearms both parallel to the floor, they basically crossed them and then flexed their wrists awkwardly to wrap their hands behind their arms somehow. Add to this a hunched lean forward and a plodding mope of a walk, and it becomes quite funny. And to top it off, they both have the same posture and mannerisms.

Well, another few grins came from the young family behind us as the dad tried to keep one of his kids (I'm not sure whether it was his three-ish-year-old girl or the younger boy) from tossing my books on the floor. We were on the standard church-issue metal folding chairs, which, with their seats' slope toward the backrest, don't make very good book stands in the first place. After the kid surprised us (me and the dad) by dragging my children's songbook and scriptures onto the floor behind me, he (she?) entertained him-/herself the rest of the meeting by testing to see whether Dad could catch the hymnbook every time before it clattered to the floor. Dad tried the distract-with-another-toy method, and the child seemed to be an expert in the I'll-cry-if-you-try-to-hold-me technique, so it was an entertaining battle.

Finally — and this one's my favorite — for sharing time in Primary, the kids "played a game" where they ("reverently," as always) came to the front to punch a hole through tissue paper attached to some poster board. The tissue-paper circles covered plastic bags attached behind the poster board, and once they punched through the paper, they reached in for a little picture or cut-out of some kind, and then they listened to a story or answered questions related to what they found there. Well, the first boy to go up front took about three hits to break through the tissue paper. He was from the oldest class in Junior Primary (and therefore presumably among the strongest children there), so I think I'll have to give the poster-holders some of the blame for that, especially since they were still getting the hang of it. Well, the really funny part was the second person to come up, a little girl in the class just above Sunbeams. She reverently strolled up with her chin up and her arms at her sides and a peaceful look on her face. When she got to the poster board, she gave it a good loud whack, breaking through the tissue paper immediately; then she strolled back to her seat just as calmly as she had come. All the adult-types got a good giggle out of that.

That's about all I remember at the moment, but it was nice to get some joy from the little ones around us. And with baby Priya's first birthday party yesterday — and a few of her peers visiting to celebrate — we've had quite a kid-filled weekend!