My daughter received an email today saying “You’re application was received!”
It was the FIRST line in the email.
Makes you wonder who is editing their communications - especially short, automated ones!
We went on a campus visit to an in state private and were handed a brochure that had a map of the state. Our home city was labeled in the incorrect location! Not once, but twice. Other cities were in the correct location, so it wasn’t a print registration issue. We got a good laugh and pointed it out to our tour guide who was mortified.
I don’t see anything wrong with that email. Don’t get too hung up on how they communicate (just thinking of your thread on the CW letter to parents as well). How they communicate actually isn’t the most important part (by far) of evaluating schools. I think every word or phrase gets examined sometimes during this period because waiting is so hard, and you just want to parse every scrap from the schools. I wouldn’t let it influence you or your kid. Get their acceptances, evaluate the financial side, and plan to go to accepted student visits at their top 3 choices if you can. Otherwise, don’t focus too much on the text you get unless they ask you for something.
The subject line should read “Your application was received!”
I’ve worked as a journalist and copywriter for my entire career. My S is following in my footsteps and wants to study English and writing. We might think twice when receiving communications that include basic grammar errors. 
@InfiniteWaves, I’ve worked as a journalist and copy editor too. I would not be happy if S18’s college mailings had typos. First impressions and all that.
My D received an email from an in-state school describing her OOS scholarship. The correction email was addressed to [First Name]. Apparently the students working in admissions cannot use mail merge.
My son received an email inviting him to a reception for accepted candidate. He emailed back “Does that mean I’ve been accepted?”
Their response: “Sometimes we make mistakes too. The email was sent in error. It was not an indication of acceptance.”
“Too”??? I think his only mistake was applying there.
From that point on, he stopped opening their mail; he was completely turned off to the school. The original email wasn’t so much the issue as the complete dismissal of their error. I think he would have been fine with an apology and “we’re still working on your application” or something.
My kid received an email bragging about a college ranking (and highlighting some visit opportunities) that was “personally” addressed to an entirely different individual altogether (which stood out, since it was a pretty unusual name), formatted in such a way that all the words were shoved off to the right of the page in a narrow column.
They had the grace and good sense and skill to follow up an hour later with a revised email that not only addressed the issue and apologized for the error, but also highlighted the fix with a customized subject line that read … “[kid name] let’s try this again.”
It was a nice save, so stayed on our list.
This goes back years, to my experience. I had applied to an MBA program at a prestigious NYC university. I had received, by postal mail, another student’s rejection letter. The envelope was addressed to me, the letter to someone else. I was appalled. I called the admissions department and they apologized.
After that, I assumed I had been rejected too, and they just mis-stuffed the envelope. But no–I was actually waitlisted. I told them thanks, but no thanks. You’re running highly ranked business program and can’t keep your admissions letters straight? I’m out.
Two experiences from my d’s application process. The first with Carnegie Mellon and I called to find out about campus tours as the website didn’t show any when we had been thinking about touring. The person who answered the phone in admissions told me, “We ain’t giving no tours on that day”.
The second was with Emerson College. I called to find out about a tour for younger d on Columbus Day, a school holiday in much of the Northeast as we would be visiting older d at Brandeis. The admission office seemed in disbelief that I would consider a visit on Columbus Day as it was a holiday and then accused me of lying when I told her that Brandeis was holding an open house as several of younger d’s friends were attending and that Boston University was available for tours. She told me that in all of her “x” number of years in admissions, no schools in the entire Northeast has tours on Columbus Day and I was certainly misinformed. Since older d had been on such an Open House/Tour during her admissions cycle at Vassar, I told her that I was hardly misinformed and that Emerson was misinformed and was not going to be on younger d’s list going forward.
Secretary at local branch of a southern state university repeatedly used “hisself” in a phone conversation, and “seen” (as in “he seen your email”). Regional vernacular, I suppose, but somewhat jarring.
This one will be a family joke for years. Our son is an athlete and has been recruited by some nice D3 LAC’s for his sport. He has been receiving direct communication from a football coach at a prominent NE D3 school. He doesn’t play football. Far from it. He would be the waterboy for the waterboy…he’s 150 lbs soaking wet and 5’9".
Funny thing is, he had been recruited, passed a pre-read for that school, and was in contact w/ the coach for his sport, but decided the school wasn’t for him. Yet, somehow the football emails continue. He clicked unsubscribe, even emailed the coach directly…nope…they still email him and apparently are impressed with his video footage. I. just.can’t…
My daughter received several “personal” handwritten note cards from two or three small colleges she had applied to during the admissions process. They were from admissions staff members and the message was something along the lines of “We hope you’ll consider attending our school - we think that you’d shine here!”
One of the note cards she received was actually the template with hand written instructions at the top concerning the format of the message: “Use student’s preferred name, write a short note about student’s personal interests, etc.” The top part of the card had some kind of design on it, so the template instructions blended in and obviously were not noticed when the staff member sent the card.
We had a big laugh about that “personalized” card she got. And no, she didn’t attend that college.
In a catalog mailed to my daughter, a large graphic stated “Top 100 Universites in the World.”
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I’m appalled when a university makes an error as bad as what @CValle cites. Is it really too much to expect institutions of higher language to use proper spelling and grammar?
I’m also bothered by the University of California telling applicants who are writing their personal insight questions that “you will not be evaluated on grammar, spelling or sentence structure.” Really? An essay by a student who’s applying to UC schools shouldn’t be evaluated, at least in part, by these standards?
I can’t find it at the moment, but there was a famous case of an admission letter addressed to a student that started something like Dear 80934725, Congratulations on your admission to [I forgot the university]. The parents wrote back, saying how proud they were of their son 80934725, and how pleased they were at the personal attention he would receive at [whatever university it was]. I am 99.99% sure this was real, and not an Onion piece.
^learning
@intparent Turnabout is fair play. How many schools tell students they’ll likely be rejected because of mistakes on their applications? Many in my experience. And HOW can you not see something wrong???
It’s kind of shocking to me how many schools will demand perfection but then when they make an error act like its no big deal.
I cringe almost every time someone uses the word myself because almost always the correct word is ‘I or me.’ Who is (IMO) the worst? Barack Obama! 'Michelle and myself hosted the lunch." “They were the guests of Michelle and myself.” Cringe cringe cringe. He’s reading from a teleprompter. Couldn’t someone catch that?
I’m always surprised that everyone on CC thinks their letters of recommendations are so great and glowing. I’ve rarely read things from teachers that aren’t full of errors. I had a note come home from an English teacher that said she would of liked to have seen more color on my daughter’s project. Would of! Well, I would have liked her to have an English teacher who knew the difference between of and have, but instead she got you. I didn’t have a lot of faith that those letters of recommendation would be clean. Glowing, nice? Sure, but not error free.
During our daughter’s college application process, I noticed that a large percentage of the admission staff were young, recent college graduates. Not to make excuses for colleges, but these young people don’t have decades of experience, so I can understand that mistakes will be made.
Just to confirm that observation, I just selected a top 20 LAC and looked at their admission staff, and five out of the eight staff-members had graduated from college in the past 3 years. What concerns me more than communications mistakes, is that people with so little life experience are the ones who are making the admission decisions at colleges. I just don’t think 22-24-year-olds are capable of critically evaluating college applications and being knowledgeable enough to recognize important distinctions between candidates.
We’ve all made fun of college tour guides and their ineptitude. There’s often only a year’s difference between being a tour guide and being a paid member of the admission staff.
@QuantMech Dear parent of 809 dot dot dot. This sounds like something right out of Star Trek…think character Seven of Nine.