At 4:32 p.m. last Monday, a relieved NYUAD Admissions team received a momentous notification: prospective student Novel Coronavirus officially declined NYUAD’s offer of admission. Awarded only a partial aid package, Coronavirus must now face the hard reality of attending the second rate institutions of Harvard or Oxford — like a peasant.

The harsh gambit began as fears of a global pandemic swept headlines during the Lunar New Year. In a shocking turn of events, the first line of defense — a flurry of community wide emails — failed to fully resolve the crisis. It appears that encouraging students to wash their hands, visiting the doctor if they feel sick, and other lessons easily mastered by six years olds, neither assuaged nor instilled the desired amount of fear. With university-wide messages on 2019-nCoV accumulating faster than the actual rate of infection, the need to change strategies became clear.

Moving to more radical measures, NYUAD Administration leveraged the only tool they had left. Breaking the standard timeline, Admissions sent Coronavirus a special acceptance letter, complete with a detailed breakdown of the effective cost-of-attendance. After struggling with Multi Factor Authentication for three full minutes trying to access the applicant portal, Coronavirus opened the letter and began to read. As they glanced through the package, a look of horror crept across their capsid. 40 percent of their expenses would be paid out of pocket.

“I don’t understand...” remarked Coronavirus in an exclusive Gazelle (virtual) interview, “I falsified my CSS and everything!”

Overcome by rage against this unforgivable slight, Coronavirus opened up a new tab on their browser and began furiously tapping away at their keyboard. Several minutes later, NYUAD received their answer.

In the email, the prospective pathogenic pupil’s perturbed, petty, and pedantically passive-aggressive prose pronounced:

*Thank you for your somewhat generous offer. While I would hypothetically appreciate the opportunity to study at such a well resourced and student-centered university, I would not receive sufficient resources as such a student would require to merit my matriculation.

Best of luck keeping up those yield statistics :-)

Sincerely, 2019-nCoV

P.S. I’m telling my friends to ED at Yale-NUS.*

While slightly annoyed by the phage’s sentiment, the majority of staff were overjoyed. “It worked perfectly!” exclaimed Admissions officer Mayken Tufcals. “Our strategy was two-fold: slight them into not coming, and if they still matriculate, force them into isolation.”

As Tufcals went on to explain, the strategy relied on exploiting the limitations faced by students not given the equivalent of a Tesla Model S at the start of each fiscal year.

“Without a stipend, many students won’t be able to afford spontaneous travel or going out literally every Thursday night. Less disposable income means less human contact — fewer chances for viral transmission. Likewise, students who pay for housing are hyper-incentivized to become RAs. Living in a single makes you far easier to quarantine.”

Indeed, even if Coronavirus had accepted, it’s unlikely they could have caused much more than a slight uptick in the number of racist posts on NYUAD Confessions.

Looking to the future, Coronavirus’ choice is likely to become far from abnormal. As NYUAD begins to realize that copying the MoviePass business model might not work out, aid packages will undoubtedly wane in generosity.

Tufcals, well aware of the policy’s implications, seemed only mildly concerned.

“Between buying their own flights, covering book fees and being forced into purchasing a meal plan, it could be enough to discourage almost anyone from enrolling here. Unless you grew up in the U.S system and think it’s normal to pay five times the median household income for a bachelor's degree… this is still a pretty good deal for you.”