JHU Joins Goucher in Sending Acceptance Letters to Wrong Applicants

Johns Hopkins University mistakenly sent an acceptance email to nearly 300 early decision applicants this week, according to The Washington Post, which said the university is not alone as “the shift from paper to electronic communications ... has increased the potential for errors.”

More than 1,300 applicants were informed online that their admission was deferred or denied on Friday, according to The Baltimore Sun, but due to “human error,” a contractor sent a congratulatory email to 294 students on Sunday, leading them to think the decision had been reversed.

Within two-and-a-half hours, Johns Hopkins sent a follow-up email to the affected students, according to The Washington Post.

A New Jersey senior who was among them said he experienced a “roller coaster of emotions,” according to WJZ.

A parent in Virginia told the Associated Press that she thought an apology by phone was in order.

Johns Hopkins Vice Provost for Admissions and Financial Aid David Phillips said that phone calls were not made so as not to draw “further attention to a painful moment for the affected students,” The Washington Post wrote.

In March, Goucher experienced a similar glitch, which it also attributed to human error.

A Goucher employee mistakenly sent congratulatory emails to 60 students who were wait-listed or rejected, WJZ reported.

Hopkins and Goucher, however, did not have to backpedal to the degree that other institutions have.

• The University of California at San Diego sent 28,000 students wrongful admission emails in 2009, according to WBAL, which said MIT sent thousands of students who had not been accepted an email about their financial aid in February.
• Fordham University sent more than 2,000 messages to students in December 2013, stating they had been accepted when they had not, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

In fact, Time magazine went as far as to report Wednesday that the “spirit-crushing mixup has become a nearly annual rite of college admissions” in the electronic age.

“Every time you push the button and you hit send,” Goucher Vice President of Enrollment Michael O’Leary told WJZ, “there’s a pause.”

Photo Credit: Johns Hopkins-Admissions/YouTube.