<p>I can't believe this happened again. I feel terrible for the kids who were given the wrong result. I can't even imagine. After going through an early acceptance with DS I know how exciting that moment is and the phone calls that immediately follow. The celebrations. The congratulations. To then be told "oops, we goofed.... sorry" would just be a nightmare. </p>
<p>I know this happens almost every year at one school or another. You would think that the schools know how hard it will be on kids to get and share the wrong news. Not taking every precaution to make sure that this doesn't happen is irresponsible and cruel. </p>
<p>I don't know what the school should do after something like this happens. Some always say that should let those kids in, other say they should return their application fees. I don't think that there is a good or fair way to handle this. The only way to handle it is to make sure it doesn't happen in the first place.</p>
<p>I’ve heard about the Univ of Del and I remember at the time I knew how horrible it would be. Having my first child as a senior this year, it would be beyond horrible. The joy and crying and jumping up and down and the calls to family, etc followed by that devastation made it ten times worse.</p>
<p>I agree, they shouldn’t be admitted, and there really is nothing you can do after the fact to make it better. Who would even want to go once they were accepted than rescinded. Let them feel the joy of being truly accepted at a school who wants them.</p>
<p>Check and recheck and recheck those letters and online releases! The college needs to give itself realistic timeframes and follow a set path that has been tested and works, and not reliant on one person overlooking something. Given how devastating this is and how horrible it makes the college look I’m sure most places have very tight controls on this.</p>
<p>They claim that the “accepted” letter was a “place holder” that they forgot to replace before releasing the results site. Well, how about using rejected place holders instead just in case they screw up again. It will be much easier to go back and say “great news, there was a glitch and you were sent a rejection in error. You’re in!” </p>
<p>Of course not screwing up would be the better way to go, but at least the the “fix” would be a lot easier if a mistake is made.</p>
<p>For the most part, I bet a cursory review of the applications of the admitted students verses the rejected students would not reveal a huge difference in qualifications. It all comes down then to the vaunted holisitic review supposedly conducted by the admissions committee.</p>
<p>I know this is likely an error by an IT person or clerical staffer but sheesh. If the school can’t even send out the correct letter, it makes it a little tough to believe they are all that meticulous in their admissions review process.</p>
<p>I think that Vassar should bite the bullet and let the 76 rejected in. After all, it was ED, so that is binding, and they have plenty of time to build a class with the remaining RD apps. I find it very hard to see how these students are completely unqualified, and since it is ED, wouldn’t most of them be able to afford the school?</p>
<p>That’s awful. I think they should at the very least return the application fees to save face and to provide some very small consolation for those families.</p>
<p>Did this just come out? Because that means that these students have probably missed the deadlines to apply to many of the schools that are similar to/same caliber as Vassar. The ED really does make it worse.</p>
<p>Then I agree that they should be admitted. If it was regular admission, it would suck, but presumably they’d at least have other applications out as opposed to actually being told to withdraw other applications/not apply after receiving this result. They can definitely still get into some schools at this point, but they certainly have much less say in selecting those that they really like and would have applied to, so Vassar’s mistake is actually majorly impacting their futures, not just causing disappointment and embarrassment.</p>
<p>Most people send out text to their family and friends as soon as they get their acceptance. D2 found out at 5pm and my phone rang at 5:01, and it went up on the FB soon after that. This is very unfortunate, bad for both sides. As someone who went through this with my kid this year, I know she would have been devastated if her acceptance was yanked from her due to a technology error.</p>
<p>It is very rare that people would withdraw their RD application as soon as they found out. Sometimes banks even make mistakes with transactions, and they have a set time frame to correct the mistake (I think within 24 hours they could reverse a transaction), so I don’t think those parents/students would have much of a lawsuit. </p>
<p>I will put in a defense for IT. This could be a case where an user(someone from admission) was suppose to remove those test cases, but forgot to.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s feasible to admit them all. 76 is more than 1/10 of Vassar’s class. Taking yield into consideration, that would be more than 150 RD apps that they couldn’t accept, and that’s unfair to the RD applicants - who are qualified etc. It was an awful error but there is not really a solution.</p>
<p>This is a tragic situation and my heart goes out to all the rejected kids. I’m sure they will get in somewhere great and hopefully put this behind them.</p>
<p>I would like to point out that an applicant can apply regular decision at any time, but must withdraw all RD apps upon enrolling in the ED college. Therefore this incident, while awful, did not preclude the affected applicants from having applied elsewhere.</p>
<p>If the ED decision was suppose to be this Fri, then it is no one fault that those students didn’t apply to other RD schools. They shouldn’t have waited for Vassar’s decision before they submit their RDs. If that’s the case, then they have no one else but themselves to blame.</p>
<p>Why not? If these kids applied ED they obviously had big love for Vassar. I posted my kid’s first acceptance on Facebook as soon as I could manage it, and there had been little doubt in my mind that she was going to get in to that school. In that case, though, we had a packet that had arrived by U.S. mail. </p>
<p>The OP said, “I can’t believe this happened again.” Are you referring to the University of Delaware thing last year? Or did Vassar mess up before? Regardless, I bet everyone who was admitted is entering with great faith in the administration’s competence.</p>