Reader’s note: This story is satirical in nature and published in a spoof issue.
As acceptance letters landed in Class of 2017 inboxes last week, administrators touted an upsurge in the number of hipsters who will make up the incoming freshman class.
In interviews with accepted students – who took spring campus tours sporting non-prescription glasses, checkered scarves and beer-stained Wavves T-shirts – most said they were drawn to GW’s newfound anonymity after it was kicked off the U.S. News & World Report’s top colleges list last fall.
“GW isn’t on any big rankings list. The problem with schools like the University of Texas or Texas A&M, as great as they are, is that you’ve heard of them,” Amaro Hudson, a prospective student from Austin, Texas, said.
Admissions officers said they could tell early on that this year’s freshman class would be different than past years. One staffer said he counted nine essays citing Banksy as an inspiration.
In about 28 “Why GW?” essays, students mentioned that they admired the University’s rebranding campaign, which they wrote was so poorly executed that it must have been self-deprecating and ironic.
University Director of Saving Face Melinda We’reScrewed said the unranking turned out to be a veritable blessing in disguise for the University.
“Initially, this unranking debacle was really disconcerting for the Office of Admissions and the student body as a whole,” We’reScrewed said. “But we never anticipated that we would actually see a rise in applications as a result. So now we’re like, whatever, let’s misreport the shit out of our admissions data if it means we can pull in this new demographic.”
But in interviews, some accepted students were beginning to regret their decision after learning more about GW. Several applicants audibly gagged when a reporter read the names of GW’s last decade of campus performers.
“Train was here? Fucking Train? Jesus,” applicant Fiona Wordplay said.
For rising freshman Sierra X-Pro II, frustrations with “sell-out” universities mounted when high school classmates donned apparel bearing recognizable university logos.
“If a school is represented in Victoria’s Secret’s PINK Collegiate Collection, it’s the kind of school I don’t want to attend,” X-Pro II said.
X-Pro II said she was excited to be a part of a university in its formative years of rebranding, admitting that she looks forward to the day “at least five, maybe six” years down the line when she can claim she went to GW before GW really became GW.
“Other universities report accurate admissions data and uphold academic integrity as paramount just for the sake of landing on those bullshit magazine lists. But GW swims against the stream, it doesn’t care about all that,” X-Pro II said. “And that’s what makes it great.”
