UC San Diego sends wrong e-mail to rejected students

UC San Diego Admissions Director Mae Brown said this morning that an “administrative error” was responsible for  a bogus e-mail that went out to 28,000 students congratulating them on their admission and welcoming them to the campus.

The applicants had been denied admission by the university earlier in the month. Someone accidentally sent the e-mail to the entire applicant pool of 47,000 although it was intended for only the 18,000 students who got in, Brown said.

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Cornell University and Northwestern University’s prestigious Kellogg School of Management have experienced similar goof-ups in recent years, but the UCSD incident Monday was by far the largest.

“I take full responsibility for the error,” said Brown, who was in the office Monday until midnight preparing an apology and answering e-mails and phone calls from disappointed students and their parents. “We accessed the wrong database.

“We recognized the incredible pain receiving this false encouragement caused," she continued. "It was not our intent.”

One parent, who asked to remain anonymous because he didn’t want to intensify his daughter’s college admissions stress, called it a “colossal screw-up” and said the family had been thinking of attending “Admit Day” Saturday, as the e-mail encouraged them to do, before learning the invitation was fake.

“It was kind of a shock,”  he said.

The mistake was all the more dire because this year is shaping up as one of the toughest in recent years at San Diego and other UC campuses. In response to a UC-wide enrollment cap ordered because of the state’s budget crisis, San Diego reduced its freshman enrollment target by 520 students, to 3,775, Brown said. 

The campus, like many throughout the United States, handles most of its application process online.  Brown said the e-mail mistake would be reviewed, but she doubted the university would back off from  communications technology.

“All our research tells us students are most comfortable with online communications,” she said.

“Ouch!” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Assn. of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, when he heard about the failure. “I feel terrible for the applicants.”

 “This is a source of constant worry at colleges," he said. "They use extremely sophisticated systems of communication from the front end of applications all the way to alumni relations for all kinds of high-stake business, and bad things can happen all the way.”

Nassirian said, however, that the advantages of technology outweigh the risk, and he doubted colleges would go back to paper-based systems.

Brown said she and her staff would spend the day answering every phone complaint and e-mail from parents and students.

-- Gale Holland

Comments

[sue]

This was obviously a horrible unintentionable techinical error. More and more businesses, including colleges, rely on technology to do our communicating...With that said it is inevitable...there will be computer glitches that is out of human control AND there will be human error due to all of the technicalities involved in technological communication -Even a slight interruption(phone call or in-office visitor) to the person or persons responsible for these processes could cause such an error. So many people (outside the realm of IT especially) expect perfection with these processes when in fact it is a very sophisticated, time consuming, tedious procedure. Most times this process will require the persons involved to gather this population of folks(in this instance, admission denials) making sure you have selected the right individuals you randomly 'test' to ensure your query has indeed the folks you want (admission denials)..once this query has been established you would need to save it as your new query database and then set up your e-mail content accordingly...then do a mail merge of sorts, e-mail merge....this is where it is extremely easy to have an error happen...if someone were to walk in your office or a phone call were to happen... the wrong query database of folks could be selected....very, very easilly done...especially when working in a fast-paced, time -sensitive environment. I believe these individuals, most of the time behind the scenes, are underpaid and overworked.....And perhaps need to be 'protected' a little more ...meaning have it a rule to not have any interruptions to these folks unless it is via e-mail, to which they could respond as they could.

[Jane Doe]

I am a student at the university of california. Although the UCSD's administration made a slight error, this should not be reflected badly upon the school. UCSD's science department is one of the best in the country. Along with the beach being a five minute walk, UCSD's laid back atomosphere makes it an excellent school to attend. I'm sorry that students were upset for about half an hour about when they were confused about being accepted or not, but they should not take their anger out on the school. If UCSD was really their first choice, they could always try transferring in the next year.

[kickerofelves]

How mediocre a student are you if getting into UCSD makes your day? The only thing more pathetic would be getting rejected by them.

[JMM]

It was a mistake - and all had previously received notification that they could not be admitted. The only thing that should have been questioned was the conflicting information.

Comparing and contrasting is a basic skill - tested on every SAT/ACT exam given. If these students could not compare/contrast and realize something was amiss, then their prognosis for success in college is already significantly reduced.

Two hours after the first email was mis-sent, a correction was issued. To think that the anonymous parent quoted above was planning to attend admit day suggests some pretty quick planning. Two hours isn't a lot of time to plan a trip to San Diego, then be so harmed when the mistake is realized.

[Down with Mae Brown]

UC San Diego Admissions Director Mae Brown should resign or she should be fired. She assumed total responsibility for the blunder so let her take the fall. Of course, maybe, these days you can do anything you want as long as you say "I'm sorry".

[College Student]

This was a horrible mistake and I feel for all those who recieved the e-mail by accident, but people should stop suggesting foolish ideas because it does not help the matter. No, UCSD should not admit everyone (they were originally rejected for a reason, the school does not have the resources to have that number of students, the budget could never accomidate them). No, UCSD shouldn't pay for the rejected students tuition at another school (just a ridiculous suggestion). An apology has been issued to each student and there will undoubtedly be severe consequences for the staff members that played a role in this, but other than that, there is no need to ask outlandish requests and drag out this mistake. This was an unfortunate event that does not at all reflect the academic standards of the university (as it is one of the TOP public universities in the country in all areas of study, especially science and engineering) and houses some of the greatest minds of the world (2008 Nobel Prize Chemist Roger Tsien). Again this was of course a sad technical mistake on the part of the admissions staff, but to further drag out this mistake would only add insult to injury.

[Some perspective...]

As a high school teacher with students affected by this, I can tell you that the students are clearly dealing with this better than those commenting here. For those who think the applicants should have known better than to believe the email or shouldn't let it affect them emotionally, these are 17 year olds! EVERYTHING takes them on an emotional roller coaster! Imagine if an accidental email went out canceling prom? It would put UCSD to shame.

[robin forbes]

so was the email sent to 28,000 or 47,000?

[It is just a college]

I am the parent of a high school senior, and she is trying to decide between colleges. This weekend she is looking at UC San Diego. I am letting her do the choosing, but to be honest I am disappointed in the direction Californians have taken our public universities. They were designed to provide a good, broad-based education to the sons and daughters of Californians...and we have paid taxes all of our lives to support this concept. The UC's in particular have suffered from California budget priorities that put education low on the list. Valuable programs, particularly in the arts and humanities, have taken a back seat to subjects that are supported by industry - engineering and product-driven biological research. We encourage students who are all about competition, and who gave away their youth in order to 'kill and drill' for exams. We love new California residents who come here specifically to claim their spot by having focused on tests and grades, not life. So even though my daughters 'qualify' to attend our public UC's, I am disappointed at what they have become because I suspect that our public colleges are shaping students to become simple capitalists rather than good, engaged citizens.

[And another thing]

I take the blame for the email...and for the overworked staff of all of our public schools In fact, I also put the blame for this incident squarely on the shoulders of the guilty parties - the voters of California. I am a sixth generation Californian and lifelong, tax-paying, voting resident of this great state. We, the voters, have continued to gut the budgets of our public schools because of our own greed and unwillingness to pay our taxes. We pay fewer dollars per student than most other states, by far. Our teachers and administrators are paid pitifully, then we blame them for not jumping through new hoops. Our economy is cutting education even further. Having visited many schools with my high school senior daughter this year, I see over and over that the admissions offices of our colleges are clearly under-staffed and over-worked. And I know quite well where the blame lies - with the cheap and selfish me-first fellow voters of my state.

[Just Chill Already]

in reference to "Down with Mae Brown"

You're an idiot.

There is no perfect fix to a problem like this one. I can't imagine why you think firing the person who MANAGES the person(s) who actually did it would be a reasonable solution, especially considering she wasn't even physically present when they did it.

YES, let's get rid of someone who has been doing her job right for who knows how long to appease a bunch of whiny HS Seniors and people across the country who have nothing to do with it but just so happened to catch it on CNN or in the LA-times. Yeah cuz that'll help the admissions department endlessly!

I remember more than anyone what it feels like to be rejected from your dream school. It sucks, but guess what, you move on. Just get over it already!

[Ben Weaver]

May 1, 2009, New UCSD Admissions Bloopers; First it was the erroneous acceptance letters to thousands of rejected students, now the trauma has been passed on to accepted students that have recently been sent erroneous denial letters. Such accidents are unacceptable for both the harm they do to students, the university and the tax payer.