Dear Graduating Student #472,

Thank you so much for inquiring about your graduation application, which has been received and filed by my unpaid assistant who also doubles as the freshman peer leader for the Film Studies department. We understand how important it is to have confirmation that you’ll be graduating after successfully passing all 8+ semesters for $260,000 and counting. We’ve been receiving graduation applications from the entirety of your class day by day, so we apologize for the delay. Unfortunately, this apology also applies to the several emails from you that we will purposefully ignore in the coming months.

We sent our applications out approximately three days and 12 hours ago, with the deadline of “within three-ish weeks.” Seeing as though you sent in your application approximately 56 seconds after we sent out the form, you were a little too late. Regardless, you will still get approved and graduate. Just maybe alone, next summer. Or better yet, with the class a year or five below you.

Before you contact us with a follow-up that consists of valid concerns and questions, we must prioritize the important matters and inform you of the non-refundable fee in your student bank account. If you have not submitted your $23 pre-payment, we are unable to move on with this application. Similarly, if you have paid that $23, we will still not follow up with you until you have paid the $57 processing fee. Nonetheless, we cannot follow up until you submit a permanent method of payment, preferably in the name of your richest family member, on your Father’s side, of course, into your student account suite. With that, you will receive a digital receipt, and a reminder to submit the minor final payment of $410 within .08 seconds.

In just five months, the Class of 2021 will be sent off into the real world! We’re certain you all will thrive as businesspeople, science-people, public-speaking-people, theatre-but-virtually-people, and maybe even people-people! While we can’t offer immediate assurance that you will receive the go-ahead to graduate on time, there’s no need to panic! All 350 members of our alumni-donor committee got together, on campus grounds, duh, to discuss these matters. If you aren’t approved by the week of graduation, you are guaranteed a diploma-placement holder that will have your name on it but will also be on a piece of cardboard. Inside that piece of cardboard are the 867 physical receipts we have printed out to remind you of how much money you, your parents, and Sallie-Mae have given us over the last 4 years.

We’ve noticed the best graduation-photos are ones where our students are crying out of adoration and relief, which we do realize is just outright fear and heartbreak. The latter of the situation is preferred in our campus tour speeches.

Sob and you’ll make the front cover of our pamphlet!

If this email has outright angered and/or confused you, we assumed so. Because of that, we compiled a list of benefits that would come with waiting for an unprecedented amount of time that we definitely warned you about, but probably not because we're silly like that.

While you wait:

  • You will have more time to polish up your resume and LinkedIn profile
  • By “polish” we do mean lightly lie
  • Our academic advisors will assist anonymously
  • You should probably take a nap
  • Of course, the inevitable inability to sleep out of fear that you won’t graduate crosses that one off the list
  • Scream into your toilet
  • Flush the scream
  • Take up knitting
  • Sell your quarter-finished scarf on Etsy
  • See the school therapist early because the only purchase you received was from your Grandma
  • Rush to the ER because Grandma died 18 years ago and you’re hallucinating
  • Hide the ER bill from your parents because you’re just having a nervous breakdown from knowing you’re probably not getting your $260,000 piece of paper for 10 years
  • It seems weird you’ll have to wait longer than you were actually in college to pay just half of your loans off, right?
  • Also seems weird you have to apply to graduate considering that was the whole point
  • We thought you would have clicked out of this by now
  • You are coincidentally calling us right now for the sixth time since you’ve applied
  • And are we gonna answer?
  • Absolutely not!

Take care, and make sure you have registered and paid for your final semester of classes! What a doozy that would cause if you didn’t!

Sincerely,
Unnamed-To-Avoid-Confrontation
Volunteer-Dean of Graduation Affairs

[This is an automated message. Please do not reply as any response will be automatically shredded in our on-campus basement shredder]

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