Accepted

Bartleby Gaines, a high school senior, has been turned down by every college he applied to, a situation his parents will not accept. Together with several classmates facing the same problem, he decides to invent an institution of his own. They name it the South Harmon Institute of Technology, house it in a disused building near their hometown, install an uncle as dean, and put up a website to make the place look real. The plan works better than expected: a large number of other rejected students take the site seriously and demand admission, leaving Bartleby and his friends to keep up an elaborate pretense.

The comedy was directed by Steve Pink, who was making his debut behind the camera; he went on to direct the two Hot Tub Time Machine films and About Last Night. Adam Cooper, Bill Collage and Mark Perez wrote the screenplay, and Tom Shadyac and Michael Bostick produced. Justin Long plays Bartleby, with Jonah Hill as Sherman Schrader, Blake Lively as Monica Moreland, Adam Herschman, Columbus Short and Maria Christina Thayer among the cast.

Made for about 23 million dollars, the film took in roughly 39 million worldwide, a modest return. On IMDb it holds a 6.4 rating from around 147,000 votes, and on TMDB a 6.5 from just under 1,900 votes; a critics' rating of 5.2 from 115 reviews places it somewhat below those audience scores.