summer melt
n.— «By late spring, millions of high-school seniors have mailed in deposits to confirm their college destinations. Some of these “confirmations,” however, will be broken. A student will be belatedly admitted to a school he prefers; a family will re-examine its college nest egg and judge it too small for a tuition omelet; little Jack will decide he would rather spend the year hitchhiking the Maghreb from Marrakesh to Mahdia. The folks who work in admissions call these defections “the summer melt.”» —“Summer Melt” by Peter Wood National Review Online June 27, 2001. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The word filibuster has a long and colorful history, going back to the days when pirates roamed the high seas. Today it refers to hijacking a piece of legislation. Plus, the language of yoga teachers: When doing a guided meditation, you may hear...
A listener who spent years in Ethiopia and Eritrea learning the Tigrinya language shares two sayings he learned there, both having to do with poultry. One translates as, “In its own good time an egg will walk on its own legs.” The other...