useful, practical experience in calculating missile trajectories and weapons yields.
S HOULD Y OU A PPLY ?
The Summer Institute is not for everyone. Weâre not looking for sluggards, laggards, or dullards. If thatâs you, pass us by. No comedians, either, thank you. Weâre looking for boys (and girls) with promise, the ones who stand at, or near, the top of their class, do their homework, and take out the garbage. If thatâs you, Uncle Sam says, âI want you to fill out the application form.â
You must submit the application, school transcript, signed loyalty oath, and letters of recommendation in triplicate by April 15. No application received after that date will be considered for any reason under any circumstances. (And donât try to blame a late application on the U. S. Mail. Nothing stays those loyal couriers from their appointed rounds, and we will look with double disfavor on the application of anyone who claims that something does.)
Despite the clear statement that no applications would be entertained after the deadline, I decided to make the effort anyway, in the never-say-die spirit of Dædalus. I completed the application. I arranged to have my transcript sent to the institute. I noticed that the application did not include the loyalty oath that was mentioned in the list of required documents; I considered this the applicationâs equivalent of an examâs trick question and devised a loyalty oath of my own. I lined up letters of recommendation, and I wrote a heartfelt cover letter explaining why my application was late and all but begging to be considered after the deadline.
Dear Admissions Committee:
I am submitting an application for admission to the Summer Institute. I realize that this application will reach you after the official deadline for submission of applications, through no fault of the U. S. Mail. I trust that you will consider my application, despite its lateness, on the grounds that I have a good excuse for being late. Here it is: until now, no one had ever told me that there was such a thing as the Summer Institute.
I am convinced that attending the Institute is the very thing I need to advance me in my goal of becoming a pharmacologist, if you know what I mean. I have been serious about this goal since I was a young boy, and I have always done my homework on time. (Well, almost always. Nearly on time.) I have enclosed a signed loyalty oath. (None was supplied, so I wrote my own, which I sincerely hope will be acceptable.)
You should receive, under separate cover, my school transcript and letters of recommendation from my math and physics teachers and from a pharmacist in my home town of Babbington, New York.
I implore and beseech you to give my application full consideration despite its lateness. If, on a winterâs night, a traveler arrived at your door late, when dinner was done and the lights were out, seeking shelter and the warmth of human companionship, would you turn him away? Of course not. Though he arrived late, you would throw your door open wide and welcome the weary applicant with hot soup, a warm fire, and a soft bed, wouldnât you? Isnât that the American way?
Sincerely yours,
Peter Leroy
Loyalty Oath
I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessâthat to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Peter Leroy
It didnât work. The admissions committee was not amused, and
S HOULD Y OU A PPLY ?
The Summer Institute is not for everyone. Weâre not looking for sluggards, laggards, or dullards. If thatâs you, pass us by. No comedians, either, thank you. Weâre looking for boys (and girls) with promise, the ones who stand at, or near, the top of their class, do their homework, and take out the garbage. If thatâs you, Uncle Sam says, âI want you to fill out the application form.â
You must submit the application, school transcript, signed loyalty oath, and letters of recommendation in triplicate by April 15. No application received after that date will be considered for any reason under any circumstances. (And donât try to blame a late application on the U. S. Mail. Nothing stays those loyal couriers from their appointed rounds, and we will look with double disfavor on the application of anyone who claims that something does.)
Despite the clear statement that no applications would be entertained after the deadline, I decided to make the effort anyway, in the never-say-die spirit of Dædalus. I completed the application. I arranged to have my transcript sent to the institute. I noticed that the application did not include the loyalty oath that was mentioned in the list of required documents; I considered this the applicationâs equivalent of an examâs trick question and devised a loyalty oath of my own. I lined up letters of recommendation, and I wrote a heartfelt cover letter explaining why my application was late and all but begging to be considered after the deadline.
Dear Admissions Committee:
I am submitting an application for admission to the Summer Institute. I realize that this application will reach you after the official deadline for submission of applications, through no fault of the U. S. Mail. I trust that you will consider my application, despite its lateness, on the grounds that I have a good excuse for being late. Here it is: until now, no one had ever told me that there was such a thing as the Summer Institute.
I am convinced that attending the Institute is the very thing I need to advance me in my goal of becoming a pharmacologist, if you know what I mean. I have been serious about this goal since I was a young boy, and I have always done my homework on time. (Well, almost always. Nearly on time.) I have enclosed a signed loyalty oath. (None was supplied, so I wrote my own, which I sincerely hope will be acceptable.)
You should receive, under separate cover, my school transcript and letters of recommendation from my math and physics teachers and from a pharmacist in my home town of Babbington, New York.
I implore and beseech you to give my application full consideration despite its lateness. If, on a winterâs night, a traveler arrived at your door late, when dinner was done and the lights were out, seeking shelter and the warmth of human companionship, would you turn him away? Of course not. Though he arrived late, you would throw your door open wide and welcome the weary applicant with hot soup, a warm fire, and a soft bed, wouldnât you? Isnât that the American way?
Sincerely yours,
Peter Leroy
Loyalty Oath
I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessâthat to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Peter Leroy
It didnât work. The admissions committee was not amused, and
Similar Books
