<p>I would like to know if even ONE student cancelled another application in the 2 or so hours on a Sunday afternoon during the period between when the ‘congrats, buy our stuff’ email was sent and when the ‘we’re sorry’ email was sent. How many received the 2 emails at the same time? Even in 2014, not everyone spends all day on Sundays reading emails.</p>
<p>A class action? All the ‘injured’ parties can be easily identified and named in the law suit. No need for a class action.</p>
<p>I think the ‘sorry’ letter was well worded. It didn’t recognized the heartache and agony the recipients had suffered in those 2 hours (basis for a law suit?) or the damages that may have occurred (cancelling other applications). Short and sweet - sorry, you are still not accepted. </p>
<p>This was a bad apology, for several reasons. First (and most important), it does not come from a person. Second, the term “regret” is weak. An apology should include “I apologize” and/or “I’m sorry.” It should acknowledge that it may result in hurt feelings, and not just “confusion.” It should also include a statement that steps are being taken to ensure that this kind of mistake never happens again.</p>
<p>Why is this so difficult for organizations to understand?</p>
<p>This is especially tough on Hopkins, as they love, love, love to promote their admissions process and admissions team as being particularly touchy-feely, with all the attendant photos of the admissions office in the snow and UPS packages going out on the various van and all that ticky-tacky stuff.</p>
<p>Somehow, I’m confident that every ED applicant knew where to get the official admission decision information on the decision website. I’m guessing that most of them checked and knew their decision before this marketing email was sent.</p>
<p>If Johns Hopkins had mistakenly put an admission offer on their decision website, which applicants reasonably could and should have understood to be official, then this would be serious; the ED application is fundamentally a contract offer, and Johns Hopkins had already clearly stated that their decision site was the medium in which they would formally accept or decline the contract.</p>
<p>In this example, they formally declined the offered contracts, then sent a message saying, “Aren’t you glad we accepted you?”, then sent a correcting message saying, “Sorry about that last message; the decision site was and still is correct.”</p>
<p>Refunding the application fee for those who got the message in error would be a nice PR gesture, but nothing more. Really, I would expect someone who applies to JHU to be more careful to confirm with official sources before taking any action. </p>
<p>If someone DID withdraw other applications in that two-hour window, then JHU would have a moral obligation to speak with the other schools and tell them that no, the applicant is not bound to attend Johns Hopkins after all and the withdrawal in that window should be forgiven. </p>
<p>If no one withdrew other applications in reliance on this email, then it would seem no applicant was actually harmed.</p>
<p>I think they handled it very well. A flowery appology email would almost feel like salt in the wound, same for a phone call. What would they even say in a phone call besides a, “Sorry, you weren’t actually accepted”? It would just be an awkward 30 seconds for both parties.</p>
<p>Hi, you are all very emotion, i think you can all tune down. Human make mistake, this not like Chornobyl, it is good for young peopple to learn life is unfair and taste disapointment sometime.</p>
<p>I don’t see “emotionalism.” You’re the one that brought up Chernobyl, unless someone else did.<br>
As for the notion that this in particular way to teach students a thing or two about life being unfair, no, there’s plenty of opportunity to learn that when notifications are accurate. Adults shouldn’t be “teaching students a lesson” through adult sloppiness. </p>
<p>Indeed, they do. But that doesn’t mean that they should not be called out for something easily preventable. The alternative is enabling more such mistakes.</p>
<p>And Hopkins was called out. What are the damages here? Hurt feelings, all the parents on CC thinking less of the school? Okay. Anyone who suffered real damages needs to bring a suit, but I doubt there is anyone who can prove damages as an applicant will have to prove an actually loss or damages. This isn’t a case where punitive damages would come into play.</p>
<p>I’m sure the email caused some confusion when it arrived. The mistake was quickly corrected. </p>
<p>However, in the JHU apology letter, I do think that it would be nice if it were signed by a real person’s name, such as the Director of Admissions (and his/her name). Just signing it “Office of Undergraduate Admissions” is a very duck-and-cover move.</p>
<p>I think the point is, it was likely one person who mistakenly sent out the emails, or didn’t know how to use the system right.</p>
<p>For example, my son is unsubscribing from a bunch of colleges that have been spamming his email, and about half of them use the same exact very strange email system. So he gets emails that say “successfully unsubscribed” with no mention of the college name. Admissions offices are being forced into buying these programs to “help out” but someone actually needs to know how to use them.</p>
<p>So when someone says it was a “computer error” it likely was an error in training someone to use the automatic email program.</p>
<p>FWIW, one college my son definitely did NOT apply to keeps saying “thank you for your application” in their emails.</p>
<p>I’m sure applicants who are turned down at schools continue to receive junk mail and spam from those schools, encouraging the students to apply and even to visit the colleges they’ve already been rejected from. It’s just junk mail. My daughter got mail constantly from the school she picked, that I’d already sent the deposit to, encouraging her to apply, to visit, to call with any questions. It’s turns out she had two files opened in the admissions office, so the one that didn’t have the completed application and acceptance was still generating ‘please pick us’ mail.</p>
<p>@epiphany and @bluebayou your logic very funny Adult not trying to teach lesson by this, this just happen and student do best to learn from this instead of complain. And what you mean by “easily preventable”? i quote from washington post, “Someone who works for a contractor that helps Hopkins with electronic communications pulled the wrong list of e-mail addresses, he said.” you never work in collge admisions, you should not judge if it is easy to make mistake or not. it is ok to call them out on this since this is mistake, but this is not huge mistake, so all i say is people should not make too big deal and give them som mercie. please don’t strau man me, i know making mistak is bad thing!!! sorry if I not clear with post, I will try improve english.</p>
<p>@69forthewin: What a tasteless sense of humor and quite a display of ignorance. Second, for some reason you have singled out only two posters on this thread out of the many who have criticized JHU. Mine was probably one of the milder criticisms, as well. Third, you have no idea what the backgrounds are of either bluebayou or me, but you make all kinds of unfounded judgments and assumptions of both of us. Given that the two of us have been posting on CC for about 10 years, and you have all of 21 posts to your name, I think I know who is, or are, the more credible posters here. You’re obviously just looking for convenient targets to attack. I don’t have to justify my position to you as to why I would hold a college to a higher standard when it comes to expression of regret than you do. The burden is on the provider, the institution, and those of greater age and power to demonstrate humanity by the way they RESPOND to their own mistake. Thankfully, JHU wasn’t quite as callous as your words are, which has nothing to do with English proficiency but with human decency. I’m putting you on Ignore. I’ve had enough of the nasty comments and your tasteless “humor,” thank you. You came to this thread not to dialogue or express an opinion, but merely to attack.</p>
Adult not trying to teach lesson by this, this just happen and student do best to learn from this instead of complain. And what you mean by “easily preventable”? i quote from washington post, “Someone who works for a contractor that helps Hopkins with electronic communications pulled the wrong list of e-mail addresses, he said.” you never work in collge admisions, you should not judge if it is easy to make mistake or not. it is ok to call them out on this since this is mistake, but this is not huge mistake, so all i say is people should not make too big deal and give them som mercie. please don’t strau man me, i know making mistak is bad thing!!! sorry if I not clear with post, I will try improve english.</p>