Photo from You Tube

For the past few months, Grace Oberhofer has been a Web sensation on the Harvard waitlist. In late April, the high school senior from Tacoma, Wash. went viral with a song aimed at convincing Harvard University admissions officials to change her enrollment status from waitlist to fully accepted.

Sporting a maroon Harvard winter cap with oversized Harry Potter-inspired spectacles, Oberhofer plays the piano and sings with satirical earnestness about Harvard’s many virtues.

Imploring the school to let her in, she closes the original anthem, “Dear Harvard,” with “H-A-R-V-A-R-D College, so scholarly. H-A-R-V-A-R-D be my universe–ity. Harvard, you mean the world to me. On John Harvard’s statue I’d never pee. . . . Let me into your community. Harvard, please admit me!”

The video has received more than 87,000 hits on YouTube, garnering the attention of tech geeks, Harvard students, alums and Oberhofer’s fellow Ivy League wannabes. As one student commented, “Hi Grace, I’m a fellow waitlistee…I really hope you got in. I think you deserve Harvard! I didn’t do anything half as cool as this to get into Harvard!”

Ultimately, Oberhofer was not admitted to Harvard’s incoming freshmen class. Instead, she enrolled at nearby Tufts University, a school that has earned plaudits for its Web-friendly admissions practices (including allowing prospective students to submit online videos in place of application essays).

In “Dearest Tufts,” a new song posted late last month, Oberhofer eschews the Harvard head-covering for a Tufts winter hat. She is later shown sharing a drink and a hug with a stuffed Jumbo, the school’s friendly elephant mascot.

As The Tufts Daily reported, “With other shout-outs to the Tufflepuffs, Tufts Dining’s kosher food and the school’s ‘sweet dance moves,’ it looks like Oberhofer is set to put aside her Crimson loyalty and hike the [the school’s famed] Hill like a true Jumbo.”

As Oberhofer concurs in her latest song’s chorus, “Tufts, you are the one, and I will carry on with you. Tufts, I’ll be your Jumbo, together we’ll paint the sky blue.”

What do you think? Was Oberhofer’s web-singing a smart, quirky way to improve her chances of moving off the waitlist? Or did her antics mock the admissions process many students take seriously?

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