WE PURVEYORS of printed information know all too well the supreme power of the deadline. Emphasize "dead." Whatever happens after that moment is lifeless, a moot point until the next edition. Presses are rolling, papers are folding, stacks of them loaded into square trucks and duly passed to those who toss them onto your doorstep. When we're minutes late on the editorial end, the calls come in from pre-press, who in turn will be badgered by the press room, who are hounded by delivery. That's a lot of people waiting for us to pass the baton, and if we stumble, we foul it up for the whole team.

So it's hard to feel sympathy for Cal when it flubbed and didn't get this year's 30 Fulbright fellowship applications to the U.S. Department of Education on time. We know -- it wasn't Cal's fault. The online Fulbright submission system wasn't working. Federal Express didn't show up, also due to computer problems. The airbill had the right date on it, all right, but it didn't go out that day.

Apparently, the carrier actually has to come and get the package for it to "absolutely, positively be there overnight."

Blame bureaucracy? Sure, anyone can get away with that. It's made us all tardy, whether by an unexpected two-hour date with the Department of Motor Vehicles, an excruciating April 15 spent at the post office, or perhaps getting time tacked on to an overnight sentence because the police misfiled one's possessions.

At the same time, we know we could have made an appointment with the DMV, filed our taxes early, or ... well, the solution to the last example probably requires a bit more serious introspection and a lifestyle change.

Here's an entry from the UC Berkeley Guide to Undergraduate Admissions: "In fairness to all students, we do not accept late applications."

How loosely does UC define "late"? What if ... "the online application wasn't working?" What if ... "the postman didn't see the flag was up on the mailbox?" What if ... "the dog developed a taste for undergraduate admissions forms?" Stammer and raise voice an octave to a tone all too familiar to academic authority figures: "But ... but ... "

But the deadline was officially missed, and that's a fact. It could have been avoided had the university not waited until the last possible minute to get the package out -- according to Cal's press release, the applications were ready to be mailed on Friday, Oct. 17, three days before the Oct. 20 deadline. A Fulbright application is not something to be dismissed as another Monday mailing. Besides the honor, with a fellowship comes grants -- last year half of Cal's applicants made the program and received from $19,593 to $63,947 each. Chancellor Robert Berdahl said, "These awards are among the most prestigious research abroad fellowships available and are crucial to many students' ability to complete their dissertations."

It's terrible that the students are the ones being punished. They did their part and made the school's deadline for submissions. They were the ones who did all the hard work to get the very comprehensive materials in order. Unfortunately, the Department of Education doesn't allow students to submit their own applications directly -- they must be submitted to a campus adviser.

We'd wager that most of the Fulbright hopefuls would not have let their application out of sight until safely on a delivery truck, most likely days before deadline.

To that end, it's unfair to the students for the Department of Education to be taking such a hard line. We can understand the point of a missed deadline being just that, and there's plenty of talent outside Cal that got applications in on time. This incident shows extreme carelessness on behalf of one of America's top research universities, and is a great example of faceless bureaucracy at university and federal levels.

The 30 wronged would-be applicants aren't faceless, however. It's their dreams that are being trod upon over a technicality. Cal should learn a lesson in responsibility to its students, and the Department of Education should demonstrate that compassion exists in higher government by accepting the applications -- this time.