My signature runs approximately an inch and a half long.  That means that in order to finish signing slightly more than 3,600 offers of admission last year, I wrote out my name by hand for a distance of one and a half football fields, which sounds like a form of Sisyphean torture.  It isn't.  In fact, it's a professional privilege.  Few people understand exactly what the day-to-day responsibilities are for a dean of admission, but if there's one concrete image that encapsulates the role, it's this: I'm the guy who signs the letters.

Yes, I know there are signature machines available for this kind of task, and I'm not at all opposed to the use of technology wherever it can simplify complicated and taxing processes without compromising them.  I'm also not naive enough to think that personal signatures count for as much as they have historically.  Electronic communication of decisions has become the norm at many universities, and this blog is evidence that I'm not averse to wading into the digital domain myself.  Nonetheless, in a 2006 Virginian Pilot article about online delivery of admission decisions, I was quoted as saying that at William and Mary we believe a letter is the most personal, private and secure way to deliver the news, good or bad.  The time may come when that's no longer the case, but two years later I still stand by the sentiment.

There's also a tactile form of closure that comes from signing admission letters personally.  For the previous four months, thousands of students have been correspondents with our committee via their application materials.  We have felt these students' presence as if they were long-term visitors, and soon some of them will be moving here for the next four years of their lives.  It's not, in other words, an impersonal relationship.  In fact, as I see the names on the pages I sign, I remember several committee conversations.  Sometimes I even remember essays or achievements, and often I marvel at the range of addresses that suggests the coalescence of a class from across the Commonwealth and around the world.

As I sign each offer of admission, usually at night and at home, away from the distractions of voicemail and email, I'm also signing-off on our committee's hard work and difficult deliberations.  We're nearly done, and with each signature I feel the finality of that process and the excitement about the students to whom these fan letters are bound.

HB