Dear Board of Admissions,

In an effort to make my “personal statement” more personal than just another mundane, self-praising recitation of high school accomplishments and false aspirations, I have chosen to ignore your stupid topic (How have you taken advantage of the educational opportunities you have had to prepare for college?). It insults me. After reading it, I asked my mother to bring me chicken soup and apply Vicks vapor rub to my chest because it made me sick.

If you, the reader, and perhaps the final arbiter of my admission to UCSB, are in any way associated with the development of the above stupid topic, please find another personal statement to read and excuse yourself from this one; I do not want such a stupid person making decisions that affect the trajectory of the rest of my life. Even if you had nothing to do with the creation of said stupid topic, but find it satisfactory, I still ask that you put this essay down immediately and walk away. I don’t like your stupid face. It bothers me. You are a dog, but not the type I would pet. You are a stupid dog. If we lived together in 17th-century Salem, I would accuse you of witchcraft and devilry, and pray that I could soon be dancing beneath the gallows from which you hung.
I am quite aware that part of your job is to evaluate the quality of my writing by scrutinizing this essay for sound structure, proper grammar and word economy. Although your mental handicap, stupidity, has surely inhibited your ability to complete this task, by some miracle you may have noticed my blatant overuse of the word “stupid.”

By the third sentence I had already effectively hackneyed “stupid,” but I still have continued to use it unflinchingly. Why have I done this? Does it indicate that my writing abilities are somewhat underdeveloped? No. You are just so wholly and fundamentally stupid that it is the only possible description I can use. Why should I grasp for near-missing synonyms when I already have the perfect word? As I type, my fingers will not allow me to deviate from this word. There is something supernatural which guides them. You are stupid. Your children, if you have somehow beguiled any member of the opposite sex into mating with you, are undoubtedly stupid. Your parents are probably siblings, which explains all of the harmful recessive traits expressed in your phenotype, one of which is stupidity.
We have come to the crucial juncture in every college essay where the hopeful student quotes a famous philosopher to assert his literacy and deserved place in your university. It was Albert Camus that wrote, “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

In your case, the answer to this problem is obvious. Your existence is a mistake. All that remains unclear is how you should end it all. Is it not unbearably cruel irony that you, with your dreadful lot in life, must read dozens, maybe even hundreds of these applications that burst with potential, possibility and hope? If receiving a university education and diploma can only land me a job with a stench like yours, do me a favor and reject this application as soon as possible. I would rather work in a coalmine or sell myself to a mean pimp in the harsh underworld of sex slavery. You disgust me. I am asking Mother to make an appointment with our doctor, because the thought of you has worsened my condition by leaps and bounds.
At first glance it may seem that my personal statement is anything but personal, and is more appropriately categorized as a rant, but it is personal. It conveys an essential characteristic that defines me: my undying hatred for you. It consumes me. Odium is all that remains in this poisoned flesh, poisoned by your ruinous stupidity. I pine for your demise. At one point I wanted to study medicine, but I no longer want to heal people. The world is dark with you in it. I will hunt you down, and restore all that was once beautiful. Start running you scum, because I am coming.

Daily Nexus columnist Zach Phillips was only accepted into UCSB because his dad works at Los Alamos Labs.