College Avoids Admissions Faux Pas

Harvard College admissions officers can breathe a sigh of relief after applicants to the Class of 2010 received electronic acceptances and rejections without a hitch this past week. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always been that way.

The College’s current system has been relatively problem-free so far—the most recent mishap was experienced in 2002 when America Online’s filter system interpreted Harvard’s e-mails as spam and bounced the messages back to the admissions office.

Fortunately for the College, it was obvious then that the Harvard admissions office was not at fault. Other than a few extra telephone calls, the error caused little distress.

Other schools have committed more serious e-mail errors, in some cases sending mistaken letters of acceptance to students whom they had no intention of letting in.

Most of the schools have simply admitted to their mistakes, apologized for the grievances they might have caused, and rescinded the incorrect messages of acceptance or rejection.

For instance, in 2004 the University of California-Davis sent acceptance e-mails to 90 transfer applicants who were actually rejected by the admissions board. Despite the momentary elation it might have brought to these students, the college simply apologized and encouraged them to “continue to work toward [their] four-year degree.”

And last month, UC-Berkeley’s law school, Boalt Hall, accidentally sent a welcome message to all 7,000 applicants.

There are only 800 spots in each Boalt class.

While Ryan Fawaz ’06—an applicant to Boalt—avoided the confusion by being accepted early, he still did not manage to escape another faux pas by the admissions office.

“I received an e-mail from Boalt inviting me to their ‘students of color’ dinner, when in fact I’m Caucasian,” Fawaz said. “I talked to some friends of mine, and this happened to them as well. We were all very confused by it.”

Other erroneous acceptance e-mails have been sent from Cornell, Duke, and the University of Georgia.

At Cornell in early 2003, early-decision applicants who were already rejected were accidentally sent a welcome e-mail two months later. At the end of that same year, Duke University made the opposite mistake. It told dozens of successful early applicants that they had been deferred.

And the University of Georgia made a grave blunder in sending 112 hard-copy acceptance letters—as well as banners carrying the school colors—to rejected students.

Yet despite a number of mix-ups at various institutions, students do not seem to be too skeptical of the admissions e-mails they receive. John W. Hastrup ’06, who is also a Crimson editor, said that his acceptance e-mail from Boalt “seemed fairly genuine.” And in his case, it was.

The e-mail problems that other Boalt applicants experienced will not change the way he views acceptances in the future, Hastrup said.

In light of these electronic errors, the Harvard College admissions office will continue to use its tried-and-true method of sending admissions decisions by letter in addition to e-mail. The College admissions website even warns applicants that about 2 percent of e-mails will be undeliverable because of reasons such as expired accounts or mailbox filters.

Regardless of the manner of delivery, “we will stand by the decision that the committee voted for,” said the College’s admissions director, Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73.