By Shirley Cayetano
SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Sending electronic college acceptance letters is an easy, fast and environmentally friendly way to notify newly admitted students. However, when highly selective universities like Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon send out accidental college acceptance letters, as they have recently, the process becomes problematic.
This raises the issue of whether or not to accept the students who receive the false acceptances.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Carnegie Mellon sent out about 800 letters this last February, and in December of last year, John Hopkins sent out 300 letters, totaling more than a thousand students who thought they would attend these renowned institutions, but were then denied acceptance.
These false acceptance letters create false expectations for students who thought that they were admitted to, perhaps, their dream colleges.
“To give students an acceptance letter and then rip it away from them is just heartbreaking,” said Sunil A. Samuel, Hofstra Director of Admission.
Not only do these students go through internal disappointment, but also public embarrassment after they share the good news on social media or even with their close family and friends. Mistakes like these are unacceptable.
That is not to say, however, that students who got false acceptances should be admitted. There is a reason why they were not officially chosen. There are comprehensive criteria considered before admitting applicants, which do not have anything to do with technical problems.
“At the end of the day, if the student is not qualified to be at the institution, they should not be at the institution,” Samuel said. “I would not put a blank acceptance on all those students”
While false acceptances happen on a much larger scale with online notifications than it does with paper, switching back to paper letters would be ineffective and inefficient. It is the online notification process that should be modified.
The consequences of these careless mistakes are catastrophic not only for students but also for universities’ reputations.
“It’s a very important time of year for students,” Samuel said. “Universities should be much more careful about this process.’
At Hofstra, for example, there are three different readers to an application to make the admission decision to ensure that such a mistake does not happen.
The consequences of a careless admission notification process can be detrimental to both a student’s feelings and the said university’s reputation. While it may not be appropriate to allow the students who receive the accidental false acceptances to attend the college or university, schools must be cognizant of these consequences. It is up to schools to ensure these errors do not happen again.
The views and opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section are those of the authors of the articles. They are not an endorsement of the views of The Chronicle or its staff. The Chronicle does not discriminate based on the opinions of the authors.