Harvard rejected him; he found a grammar error and rejected the rejection
In 1981, Paul Devlin famously rejected a rejection letter from Harvard University after spotting a grammatical error in the document. The story of his humorous response has persisted for decades as a cultural anecdote about academic bureaucracy.
Why it matters
It serves as a lighthearted look at the high-pressure world of college admissions and the human tendency to find agency in rejection.
In 1981, a student who was rejected by Harvard University decided he wasn't going to let the letter have the final word. Instead, he wrote back to reject Harvard's rejection.Paul Devlin wrote back to Harvard a humorous letter after noticing that the rejection letter from Harvard contained a grammatical error. That prompted him to send a reply saying he could not 'accept' Harvard's rejection.Devlin's mother sent a copy to The New York Times, where it was published in the newspaper's New Jersey section on May 31, 1981. More than four decades later, the letter continues to be shared online and has even been performed at a public reading.Devlin, who later became an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and sports editor, recalled that the idea came after he spotted a grammatical mistake in Harvard's rejection letter."I noticed that the rejection letter I received from Harvard had a grammatical error," Devlin wrote.
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