Schools
OOPS! Goucher Accidentally Admits, Then Rejects Students
The college reportedly began receiving phone calls from confused applicants.
Goucher College issued an apology to applicants who received acceptance emails, then rejection letters by mail, after several people called in confusion to figure out which was correct, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Michael O'Leary, the vice president of enrollment management at Goucher, told The Sun that 17 students on the wait list and 43 who were rejected were affected by the accidental email, or approximately 2 percent of the applicant pool.
O'Leary said human error caused the problem, and the college would review the cases again and may accept some on the second pass, The Baltimore Sun reported.
Other universities have experienced similar issues with mixed messages.
Last month, an admissions counselor at MIT said he accidentally merged two email lists he was using and sent recipients incorrect information about being accepted, according to Boston magazine.
In December, Fordham University sent 2,500 applicants notifications that they had been accepted when in fact, that was not the case, according to the New York Times. A third-party company contracted to handle the communication told The Times that it happened "when data was transferred from a staging environment to our development environment.”
Other colleges that have reported admissions faux pas in the past couple of years include UCLA, Vassar College, Penn State, University of Delaware, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego, according to New York Daily News.
Michael O'Leary, the vice president of enrollment management at Goucher, told The Sun that 17 students on the wait list and 43 who were rejected were affected by the accidental email, or approximately 2 percent of the applicant pool.
O'Leary said human error caused the problem, and the college would review the cases again and may accept some on the second pass, The Baltimore Sun reported.
Other universities have experienced similar issues with mixed messages.
Last month, an admissions counselor at MIT said he accidentally merged two email lists he was using and sent recipients incorrect information about being accepted, according to Boston magazine.
In December, Fordham University sent 2,500 applicants notifications that they had been accepted when in fact, that was not the case, according to the New York Times. A third-party company contracted to handle the communication told The Times that it happened "when data was transferred from a staging environment to our development environment.”
Other colleges that have reported admissions faux pas in the past couple of years include UCLA, Vassar College, Penn State, University of Delaware, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego, according to New York Daily News.
Joyce Smith, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said that in some cases, colleges that have accepted students by accident have decided to make good on the offer and accept them, USA Today reported.
"Personally, I believe when there’s a mistake, you own it," O'Leary of Goucher told WJZ. "You apologize for it, and you move forward."
Leary said some of the decisions about offers of admission were being changed, The Baltimore Sun reported.
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This is the second time in five years Goucher has mistakenly sent congratulatory communications to applicants it has rejected, WJZ reported.
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