Chicago Shady Dealer

Entire Class of 2016 Drowns

By Walker King
Oct. 21, 2012

Tragedy struck the University of Chicago last week when the entire class of 2016 drowned in a series of freak accidents across the Chicago area. School officials have attributed the death of every entering first-year in the College to the abolition of a swimming test for entering students, a longstanding tradition abandoned this year with little explanation.

“Oh, jeez. We really didn’t see this coming,” said Dean of the College John Boyer, in a press release. “Our bad on this one, seriously.”

Students across the campus are in shock at the sudden and unpredictable turn of events. “I was just walking to the Reg with this first-year from my house, and he just slipped in a puddle and started drowning,” said third-year Jennifer Arviso. “You really just don’t know when you will need to be able to swim.”

The University of Chicago swim test had, for more than 60 years, assessed the swimming abilities of entering freshmen by making them swim a simple 100 yards. If students could not complete this, they were issued a mandatory life vest until they could complete a basic swimming course.

President of the University Robert Zimmer held a press conference discussing the tragedy on Tuesday. “We really thought we didn’t need to teach students to swim anymore, with things like the iphones around. Huh. Well, I guess we were wrong.” President Zimmer said while shrugging his shoulders emphatically. “Guess we will have to reasses our acceptance rate for transfer students next year.”

As part of its analysis into the mass deaths, the University has released an extensive accounting of the drowning incidents. Notably, 609 first-years were killed in a rainstorm during the second week. A further 472 were found dead in Botany Pond, and more than 100 freshmen died trying to shotgun cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon at various parties around University campus.

“They just had no idea how easy it is to drown on campus,” said fourth year Christian Voss. “I’ve almost drowned at least three times today. I’m really glad I had to learn to swim when I got here. Otherwise I wouldn’t have lasted until my first midterms .”

At press time, a small contingent of transfer students, not yet schooled in Swimming, had barricaded themselves inside Harper ?eading Room for safety and declared it “Drytopia.”