@momof2lefties Sending you and your family a fierce virtual hug. You have gotten a lot of good advice and it sounds like you have a solid plan. Wishing you all the grace and strength you need to sort this out. We are here to support you.
@momof2lefties - you’ve got the WHOLE tribe at your back - hope you can feel our love and support. This is where I feel my heritage kicking in… I have the strongest urge to bring a casserole over to your house… (plus the biggest dang bottle of wine to be found)
You are our hero
@momof2lefties I agree with @toowonderful but I’m like the rebel here! I want to go rogue and set up a phone tree where they receive about 200 calls about this horrific error on their end
Well, if you don’t tell her until tomorrow night, it will be the weekend and you won’t be able to do anything for 3 days. That will be hard. I’d be on it all day tomorrow, telling the school (who? I don’t know) that until you receive something in writing you are going to go by what you have in writing, and that is an offer of acceptance.
When was she accepted?
@Nice article about Vassar. First few paragraphs seem particularly relevant about the offer and acceptance. Don’t worry about the paragraph concerning “mistakes”. Seems like there needs to be a “mutual mistake”. Not the case here.
https://concurringopinions.com/archives/2012/01/vassars-mistaken-acceptance-letters.html
^^^I posted the article at #33
@momof2lefties - Sorry, meant to tag above with your username.
@momof2lefties You’re my hero for the way you’re handling this. If you do decide to force the issue you may want to stress in your discussion tomorrow that you haven’t told your daughter - and SHE already sent in the deposit!
@artskids - Wow! I googled something like “college offered admittance, deposit paid, binding” and it was several links down. What happened to her daughter really torqued me up. I haven’t posted on CC in a few months but this really got to me. I’ve got a daughter as well. She’s in freshman year at Southern California. It’s tough on these kids today. Really stressful.
I think OP said her DD’s admission portal was changed over the weekend to enable her to place a deposit - today (when I think the OP received the phone call) is Thursday so it would have been Sunday or Saturday. 4 or 5 days ago. The OP also mentioned that her DD received a letter/admission packet in the mail. See her post #16.
This is not the “2 hours later, oops we used the wrong email list” goof that has happened at other places.
How about seeing if you can negotiate an an automatic transfer after one year of attending another school (assuming a certain GPA, for example) or a deferred enrollment after a semester or a year as @MomofJ5 suggests.
Some schools (e.g., USC (California)) do this, sometimes offering January admits and having arrangements with other schools (in USC’s case, American University of Paris, for one) wherein students can take classes at the sister school and automatically transfer their credits to USC. Sometimes, schools will admit you for the following year, allowing a gap year for travel, work, study, or they might tell you to that they will guarantee admission if you apply as a transfer for the following year.
To my mind, there’s a big difference between a school having a huge screw-up and accidentally admitting 100 - 200 kids versus admitting one otherwise viable candidate by mistake. The latter is much more easily fixed (and, from the student’s perspective, much more hurtful).
@GnocciB @twoinanddone , D received a letter in December saying that decisions would be made last Friday, 2/23. Her portal changed Friday to include a link to pay the deposit, which we took as a positive sign. She received her admissions folder with letters from the Dean of the Department, as well as one (hand-signed) by the Director of Admissions (who called me today), and a checklist of to-dos this past Monday. We live in OH, so that mail had to have been sent out no later than Friday. So she has been living for almost a week now with positive signs, and four days with a “concrete” offer of acceptance. We ordered a sweatshirt on Tuesday, which should arrive tomorrow, and which I may cut up into teeny-tiny pieces. 
Now that she has paid the deposit doesn’t she have to withdraw all her other applications? It’s only March 1 I’m going to assume that she is still waiting on admissions decisions from other schools. I hope it wasn’t a big mistake jumping the gun and putting a deposit down. Of course if there is no the school that she is interested in going to then fine, but if there are still other schools high on the list that haven’t sent out their decision yet, you may be cutting off your nose to spite your face by putting down that deposit. Were there other schools she was looking forward to hearing from?
@momof2lefties I think you are handling this with such incredible strength and grace. Like the loving Mom you are, your thoughts are first and foremost of protecting your daughter and I think your efforts to try to sort this out before telling her, especially when she has a big test tomorrow are amazing. This is a big burden to carry on your shoulders and keep up pretense while you try to make sense of this senseless and reckless action by the school. I truly hope that you are able to help them see the light and that they do the right thing and enroll your daughter in the program. I am rooting for you and your daughter and hoping for some kind of happy outcome out of this terrible mess completely outside of your control that you are now having to manage. Hang in there and know you have a whole group of riled up Moms backing you every step of the way!!
@marg928 Depositing should in no way preclude an admit from saying yes elsewhere. Student can deposit at another school later and lose the $500 if she changes her mind. She’d only need to withdraw other apps if this were an ED app.
We don’t know each other but wanted to reach out to say how 1) That I’m so sorry & 2) I am mad on behalf of your daughter. Anyone on here can imagine how it would be to be in your family’s shoes. Something else WILL come. Best of luck convincing your daughter of that right now. Virtual hugs across the miles.
I completely echo @sopranomtmom. You are doing an amazing job with this unfathomable situation.
Wow, I’d call my attorney then knowing what the law says call the admission office. Their mistake and they might have to stand by it. Just hopIngharra you have something in writing. Or maybe better I would have my attorney call the school or write a letter. When you own a business you are responsible for contracts ( can be verbal) when you run a school there must be rules as well. I don’t sue people ( have never had to) but I would certainly protect my families rights.
No, she can’t accept another offer, but she can leave the other apps in place. If she wants to accept another offer, she’d have to withdraw this one (unless it was ED2, which I don’t think it was).
@momof2lefties You’re amazing, and we’re all furious for you.