It has recently come to light that Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov’s early application bid was rejected by the University. An enraged cadre of Russian literature students, accusing the University of hypocrisy for rejecting an applicant it teaches books about, has stormed the Slavic Reading Room on Hamilton 7 in protest of the decision. Last night, Spectator investigative journalists broke into the admissions office in Low Library and obtained a copy of the rejection letter, printed below.

Dear Raskolnikov,

Thank you for your application to Columbia University. Unfortunately we are not able to offer you a place in the Class of 2013. This was an unusually competitive year for admittance, and you were one of thousands of worthy applicants not to be accepted to Columbia.

Your application was particular and exceptional. You highlighted various interesting aspects of your personality and even, some would argue, your worldview. We were interested in your listed extracurricular activities, but we were not impressed. It is very noble of you to dedicate 60 hours a week to “compassion.” At Columbia, however, we like to examine our applicants’ achievement record. We phoned your school office concerning the actual existence of the Upset Thinkers’ Society, and found that you were, indeed, its only member. We were, in a word, concerned about your lack of demonstrated teamwork and leadership skills. We do not expect every applicant to have been an athlete in high school, but we question how you will perform in the Core Curriculum with flabby abs. Had you been treasurer of Model UN, we might have been more confident about your capacity for global citizenship and your passion for numbers. You even had an opportunity to explain yourself at your interview with an alum, but you apparently spent the whole half hour feverishly telling yourself to “refrain from desperate action.”

Your application essay exceeded the word limit by over 40 pages, though to your credit, you maintained the encouraged five paragraph format. Your inflammatory comments about “despotic jocks” and your “self-celebrating principal” made us question your commitment to school spirit. How can you be a Lion if you don’t roar? This is the sort of question you could have asked yourself but didn’t. We were glad to note your interest in Napoleon’s biography, but we were equally troubled by your endorsement of murdering invalids who stand in the way of progress. The passage in which you call yourself “a scab, a vermin, a diseased, putrefied cockroach” was even more alarming. There is always a place for self-deprecating humor, but at a liberal institution like Columbia, negativism is never encouraged. If you do not think you are the best, what can you think at all?

There were other signals in your essay that Columbia is not the place for you. You called community service “the promised land of moral bureaucrats.” We like to recognize the members of our community who give back to the community as vital members of our community, almost as much as our varsity wrestlers. We took offense to your claim that political activists are “petty dictators with machine gun sign-up sheets and daggers dressed as ball point pens.” Activists are a persistent and time-honored breed at Columbia. “Caged parrots” they may be—we still value them for their periodic reminders that political engagement is a moral imperative and that the material progress of the whole is the highest good.

We were pleased to discern a certain level of studiousness in your essay, but studiousness is not a quality we like to overemphasize here at Columbia. Your essay included a treatise on the questionable moral standing of self-imposed suffering—you could have picked a more cheerful topic. You failed to resolve your entire inner turmoil in the final paragraph, a virtual inconceivability in a personal essay, and instead merely alluded to a loose woman whose “translucent” blue eyes had the potential to save you. We hope you were not defaming Alma Mater with that statement.

We seek positive-minded students who will eagerly write blue booklet examination essays comparing Odysseus to Moses. Why are Marx and Hamlet wrong? Were the Ten Commandments an example of God’s communication or of His leadership skills? Columbia, you see, is a home for future leaders. Contemporary thinkers can go elsewhere. As our students set out on their individual career paths, respectively, we question the need to overthink. Especially when thought becomes unpleasant, we are skeptical of its purpose. We value vigor, which is why our janitorial staff has spent the past several years relentlessly removing the smoking intelligentsia from the front doors of Butler Library. Our staff is vigorous, and you should be too.

A professorial committee recently convened in a public setting to deliberate on Descartes’ assertion, “I think, therefore I am.” The committee concluded that, “We are, therefore I think.” We suggest you bear this in mind as you flee the disgrace of this rejection. You didn’t get into Columbia, but surely failure is not inevitable.

Sincerely,

The University

Alexi Shaw is a Columbia College senior majoring in Russian literature.
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