With a mere 4% acceptance rate, Stanford boasts the most competitive admissions for university human applicants. However, an even more shocking number was released yesterday — only 1.7% of all lab mice that applied to be experimented on in Stanford labs were accepted this year.
With access to the newest technology and equipment, it’s no surprise that so many animals want to be a part of this work. Hundreds of mice are eventually published in a number of prestigious academic journals. “I had a cousin once who’s study got published in Nature”, said one mouse. “I don’t see much of him these days, I assume the fame has carried him on to better things.”
Stanford has committed significant resources to building a diverse cohort of mice. However, the preference for diversity doesn’t benefit every candidate. “I’m just at a disadvantage,” said Lindo, a standard BALB/c white mouse in a New Jersey breeding facility. “Don’t get me wrong, being BALB/c white comes with its own obvious privileges. I’m just nervous because these days admissions officers heavily favor mice with more diverse backgrounds than mine.”
“I really didn’t expect to get in here”, said Jamie, a first-generation mouse from a Texas breeding facility. “It was kind of a last-second thing, applying here. I was expecting to go to UT Austin or Texas A&M – my parents had just been lab rats in a community research center. But then I got the letter, and next thing I know, I’m being shipped to the best academic institution in the country!” Abel, another mouse, is confident that he will get in with the next cohort of applicants. “My family’s been getting dissected here for over 8 generations — there’s no way that I don’t get in. It’s in my genes – they simply can’t wait shave my stomach, make an incision under my breastplate, and inspect my pancreas.”
The admissions committee is still recovering from last year’s incident, where they were caught accepting bribes to admit certain mice into the program. Jennifer Anderson, Dean of Admissions claims, “We genuinely believed the mice was on the sailing team, the photos looked so real.”
