Changing a password

[ChrisGreaves]

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So I went to change my default password as a new student at University of Toronto - A World-Class Institution, for those of you who have never heard of it (grin!).
Apart from the fact that passwords must be eight characters in length, not one character more, not one character less, when every man and his dog nowadays tells us "the longer the better", and the system going down the instant I clicked on "Submit" last Thursday, I persevered and finally got to submit my new self-chosen password yesterday.

What kind of system tells you to wait until tomorrow for the password-change to take effect?
And do they really mean that they'll be working on it Saturday night so that everything is ready by Sunday morning?
In my experience, I usually want the change to take effect immediately (usually because I've been demonstrating my passwords to a third party, and want to re-secure my site as soon as I can after the lesson is ended).

Apart from which, I am now presented with a problem of the University's making: which of my passwords is now valid? And if it is the original one, we know that sometime soon I'll use it and be told that it is changed ...

P.S. I get it, I get it! If you're not smart enough to jump these hurdles, you probably shouldn't be enrolling in a course anyway, right?

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[HansV]

The system administrator probably has to process your request and manually enter your new password into the system...

[Rudi]

Each password is scanned by the freshman's (or newbies) to ensure it is the correct length and correct use of Upper/Lower and symbol usage. Its a lot of student power to manage this task and I'm sure they get behind their quotas due to studies...

[BobH]

Very bad hiring practices.

Assuming that anyone with a graduate degree has demonstrated sufficient intelligence to manage IT. (Hospitals make the same mistake. Physicians treat or research; they THINK they are sufficiently able to manage IT but they usually foul it up terribly.)

Low budgets constraining software and infrastructure purchases.

Stupidity.

[William]

Perhaps the University of Toronto is run by the Mayor of Toronto ...

[ChrisGreaves]

Perhaps the University of Toronto is run by the Mayor of Toronto ...

Now then!