http://www.snopes.com/college/admin/admin.asp

Administration

It's tough enough for the average college student to gain admission to the educational institution of his choice, to finance his education, and pass all his classes and graduate without having to deal with all the complicated and arcane rules and regulations the administration puts in his way. And then there are all the rules the students themselves make up simply to poke fun at academic bureaucracy.

Ratings Key

        Green bullet = true
        Red bullet = false
        Multiple status bullet = multiple truth values
        Yellow bullet = undetermined
        White bullet = unclassifiable veracity

Select this link for an expanded
definition of our rating system.

  Green bullet Student finances his education through donations of one cent each.

  Multi-colored bullet Playboy magazine compiles annual rankings of America's top party schools.

  Red bullet A student whose roommate commits suicide automatically receives a 4.0 average for the semester.

  Red bullet School serves ice cream at every meal due to the wishes of a benefactor.

  Red bullet School requires all students to pass a swim test because benefactor's child drowned.

  White bullet Student taking exam calls for cakes and ale under ancient, never-rescinded regulation.

  White bullet Respected instructor is forced by university regulations to obtain an advanced degree in the subject he already teaches; the first class he enrolls in uses a textbook he wrote.

  White bullet Students who arrive to find a tape recorder spewing the day's lecture retaliate by leaving tape recorders of their own behind to capture it.

  Red bullet Henry Kissinger was the last student to graduate from Harvard with perfect grades.

  Green bullet College fills open faculty position through cynical job posting.

  Red bullet All colleges have regulations specifying how long students must wait if an instructor fails to appear, and these wait times vary depending upon the academic rank of the instructor.

  Red bullet Dwight D. Eisenhower became president of Columbia University because the school's trustees confused him with his brother, Milton.

  White bullet Applicant turned down for a university spot as a student or instructor sends letter declining the rejection.

  Red bullet Furman University changed the name of its mascot to avoid an embarrassing acronym.

  Red bullet College cafeteria food is laced with laxatives.

  Green bullet The photograph used for a University of Wisconsin application booklet was altered to include the face of a black student.

  Red bullet Harvard is offering tuition-free education to African-American students majoring in the sciences.

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2013 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.