Help needed with unfair rejection at Purdue

^^^^This. There’s still a part of the story that seems to be missing. April 29 (Thursday) she accepts her spot and pays a deposit to start in the summer. Then she calls and says she made a mistake? (Presumably calls Friday). Because she wanted to start in the fall but selected summer by mistake? What is the glitch? And why was it difficult to correct? Why would she need to pay again for the fall? Isn’t summer start still one of the options to start of the 2021-22 academic year? Just confusing.

Purdue certainly isn’t looking good no matter what. Your acceptance date shouldn’t be over a weekend.

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Terrible. I hope it gets resolved quickly. I’m wondering what a plan B would look like just-in-case it doesn’t get resolved favorably.

I am sorry for responding late. Somehow, the site had restricted my ability to respond back. They have informed that it is fixed now.
The acceptance letter came in towards end of Feb.

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So have they said why there isn’t room for her in the fall if she clicked accept on summer? If she starts in summer she’s then there for fall too, so it shouldn’t be a yield or rooming issue- they have space for her all year whether she starts summer or fall. I’m sure this must all be SO frustrating. Does she have a backup plan? What are they offering?

The sole reason were were late to accept was because she noticed the summer option when we went to accept. She started exploring it and spent days planning what she can do in summer to get a head start. My daughter did not pick summer option in error. She selected it because the site offered it and she was excited about it.

This caused her weeks of planning and I thought we were well within the time range when she selected the option on April 29th.

I do blame myself for asking her to pay via echek. She was ready to pay with credit card, however I realized that it will cause $11 extra and I tried to be money savvy by suggesting to use eCheck. I could not have been more dumb.

Looking at the level of pain I have gone through because of all this and the money spent reaching out to layers etc, I would totally agree that

  1. One should not wait till last week
  2. Use text messages instead of phone call so that there is a written record of communication
  3. Double check everything when there is insufficient documentation.
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So assuming you can’t get it fixed, what are the other options? Jc ? You can, as a back up, still apply to schools on the NACAC list. Lots still have openings…as a just in case.

If you can price they were wrong I’d assume they’d fix it. Or go to the state board of education, etc. but you need plan b

I would not call it my family’s mistake. Specially that Purdue has already accepted that it was their mistake.
I do have certain regrets because I made assumptions about things instead of documenting and double checking everything.
Having said that, I am new to sending a kid to college and am learning some of these things from your responses. I cannot be more appreciative to the support I am receiving it.

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I have tried my best to give facts as they are as I am new to this and am learning from all of your responses. I fail to understand why it was only my D who faced it. Maybe there are others.

I did call Purdue to understand it when the payment is expected to be submitted, and initial answer from the person on the phone was “When you click that payment”. When I explained my situation and the person put me on hold came back after few minutes and said she is not sure.
To understand it better, I called another university and asked the same question. They said that payment is assumed submitted when one clicks it on their side.
Some individuals on this forum have suggested that once they accepted the payment, this is considered a contract.

I agree - I am not here for publicity. I am working to find a solution and move on.

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If no mistakes were made on the April 29th payment/acceptance - why was a phone call made on Friday April 30th…with agreed upon changes made at that time? I guess I am more confused with every update to this story.

I hope your child is able to get a resolution that she and the school both feel works.

This is a great story to remind all parents/students to not make assumptions as to process (call schools if you have any questions before hitting send on the computer) and the unforeseen risks from waiting until the last day or so to accept a college spot. I hope it can helps others.

When I was talking to Purdue Counselors, they informed that there was a glitch in the site that they were aware of but did not know how it happens. Fortunately, my D took screenshots so I am hopeful that they can get it fixed it now.

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Thank you so much. I have already started on this path. Fortunately Purdue sent me a note yesterday apologizing, changing their stance and stating their willingness to find a solution. I am hopeful to have some options now.

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You weren’t late to accept. The deadline was May 1 right?

Most schools have a Facebook page for parents. Maybe post there if anyone else has had this issue. Power in numbers.

It’s a shame but you have document and screen shot just about everything today. Keep all receipts.

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Agreed - A simple warning message is all they need to add.
There are some more fixes needed though I am writing these here because I have IT background and since they responded to me late yesterday, maybe they are monitoring this thread.

  1. They need to have an internal error message when a payment is made but is not processed within an hour. (This would have raised a flag when my daughter’s payment was not processed)
  2. Then need to add a login to the payment processing system where if a student made a payment irrespective of which semester, the system does not drop that student
  3. They need to add a process to delay dropping a student on a given date. If May 1st is the deadline, Student should receive a message that they will be dropped in 24 hours and asked to reach out if there is an error. This way any future bug/glitches could be handled.
  4. Then need to have basic mathematics in the payment logic that should raise error for any discrepancy in payment clicked vs processed. A simple logic such as this one could make their software stable
  5. If the deadline is on a Friday/Sat/Sunday - They should extend all processing till Monday evening. I am in this situation because I could not reach them on Saturday.

The things I wrote above for them for free, I would have charges a few thousand for had I been consulting them on their software design.

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Yes and Purdue has a very active official group run by a Purdue person who is on the ball. I stayed in it even a few days after my son paid his deposit to Michigan.

@deesal was everything done by midnight Eastern time on May 1 as opposed to midnight in whatever time zone you’re in. Make sure that isn’t one of the issues here. If she clicked the summer option even if that was a mistake it sounds like she can at least take that route. Also, what is your school counselor saying? They should be helping facilitate this and making calls on behalf of your daughter.

We made the payment of 29th. We had a screenshot. Acceptance email did not arrive. We checked the website, we could not see acceptance on the site.
That is why we called on 30th. We informed them that we have selected the summer option.
We were informed that site updates after 24-48 hours. We don’t have to worry.
We were still worried so we kept on checking
On Sat May 1st, when there was not update, I called Pudue but everything was closed.
Om Monday May 3rd, My daughter called them in the morning because that was the first opportunity to reach them.
I hope this helps with the confusion.
Thanks so much for your wishes and I am very hopeful that reading this another parent does not have to go through what I have been through last few days.

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That is correct.

I am very sorry that you and your daughter had to suffer unnecessary stress and undue conflict. Purdue made a mistake. It should take the high road, admit your daughter and send you both sweatshirts for all the agony it caused you. I hope you are able to put this mess behind you and enjoy the next chapter in your lives.

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@deesal I am so sorry that this happened – what a mess. Please keep this thread posted about the resolution.

I’m glad that you had some helpful responses here, and sorry to see that so many people were so rude and dismissive. You have to take the good with the bad on this site.