What If MIT Delivered Acceptance Letters By Drone?

MIT, always forward thinking, has envisioned a stark, dystopian future of college admissions, one where strange, heavy objects fall out of the sky, bringing news to the most elite high schoolers. Welcome to the world of college acceptance letters by drone.

In a tongue-in-cheek video to promote their upcoming college admissions decisions, MIT shows Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill releasing an army of drones that carry letters all over the world (and solar system) to bring good news to the future MIT class of 2019. One wonders whether all teenagers of the future might someday look to the sky, hoping beyond hope to see a “big drone,” not a “small drone” arriving with their admissions fate.

The whole thing evokes the owl-born admissions letters to Hogwarts sent out in the Harry Potter book series. Is this really a case where the imagined future improves upon current technology? Sending an expensive army of flying robots as far as Beijing seems cool. But you know what might be even cooler? Instantly notifying high school seniors of their admission through a mysterious information network that allows them to receive mail in an immediate, paperless manner. With such technology—let’s call it “electronic mail”—MIT could even plan the release of decisions so precisely as to notify people on 3/14/15 at 9:26 a.m. (That’s 3.1415926, the first several digits of pi.)

This is, of course, the actual way that MIT freshmen will discover their fate when MIT sends out its decisions the old fashioned way this weekend, by e-mail. And why not? After all, the university and its alumni had a fairly heavy hand in the invention of that technology back in the day, too. Might as well show it off.