<p>The suggested language by LurkerDad makes no sense to me. Vassar made a mistake. It was obviously not done on purpose and we don’t know who made it. To suggest that Vassar say it didn’t care about its applicants seems way over the top. As we all know, there are hundreds of examples in life of technology gone awry and even similar situations where applicants have been accepted inadvertently. Probably Vassar hasn’t made knowledge of technology a prerequisite to working in the admissions office (and I’m sure that’s the case in 99% of admissions offices in the country) and someone screwed up. </p>
<p>My parents always told me that if you make a mistake or hurt someone, you should make a sincere apology and hope you are forgiven. I believe that Vassar is genuinely upset about this mistake and has made a number of sincere apologies and I don’t believe there’s anything else they should do. I would hope the applicants impacted can move on from this, but I think that all of the publicity and threats of lawsuits etc. isn’t very conducive to moving on.</p>
<p>Admissions officers needn’t be IT experts to prevent this. It would be a very simple matter for IT run a list of the pending emails and have Admissions approve it before the “Send” button gets pushed. I hope that every college in the country is reviewing their notification procedures and taking whatever steps are necessary to prevent this from happening to them. From now on, there really will be no excuse.</p>
<p>I can understand why Vassar “closed” on Friday after sending the updated decisions and apology email. With some of the applicant’s responses, such as demands for explanations, compensation, admittance into Vassar anyway, legal action, etc, the admissions office would be working well into the night and probably the next day to resolve this matter (the admissions office closes around 4 I believe). Taking calls on Monday was the right call because it allows a weekend for families to understand the mistake and move on (some of them at least), and gives more time for Vassar to decide on a course of action and the entire day and beyond) to answer questions.</p>
<p>Suppose USNWR gave an automatic five-year penalty to any college that let this happen, such that Vassar would be ranked just behind Podunk CC until 2017. Further suppose that USNWR had implemented this policy several years ago following similar episodes at other schools such as U Delaware, e.g. Under my hypothetical, Vassar and all other elite schools would have taken steps long ago to make sure this never happened in the first place. </p>
<p>Why? Because the schools place such a high priority on their ranking, while they care little about the effect their negligence has on applicants.</p>
<p>Maybe that’s not such a big deal, but to simply brush it off as a “mistake” is not acknowledging the forces at play here, IMO.</p>
<p>wow LurkerDad, you are pretty harsh and judgmental (and a little prone to conspiracy theories–I like the “forces at play” line). I’m fairly certain that a lower level functionary in the admissions or IT office is probably being raked over the coals internally, and to that extent, you have a point. From now on, Vassar will make sure that the system is double and triple checked before decisions can be accessed. However, I really would not call it negligent–nothing had gone wrong before, they thought they had a system that worked and something went wrong. It happens every day in businesses and personal life and most people understand that. even though it truly hurt the applicants involved, it was a simple mistake–not grounds for an “off with their heads” reaction.</p>
<p>But I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.</p>
<p>Once upon a time there were two cars. Car No1 crashed Car No2.
Both owners get out.
Car2-Owner : “What are you doing?!? You just crashed my car!!!”
Car1-Owner: “I know , but it wasn’t totally my fault. I had auto-pilot.”
Car2-Owner: “Whatever, just pay the damage you did to me”
Car1-Owner: “Sorry man, I won’t pay you because I owe money to another guy”
Car2-Owner: “Like I care!! That’s your problem! Just take responsibility for your actions and pay me”
Car1-Owner: “Soz fella! Sorry again!! oh… and here… take a bus ticket and a chewing gum. Sorry again! CYA!”</p>
<p>This thread is becoming stranger and stranger.</p>
<p>Please also remember that there are students who have work study jobs, and students work in the admissions office. This was a terrible error, no doubt about it. It could have been made by a student. Some of these responses are getting really out there.</p>
Presumably the motivations and priorities of the School. If a college knew that it would have its rankings severely impacted by a mistake like telling students they were accepted when they really weren’t, they would probably take greater pains to prevent such foul-ups. In this case, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone to worry about it in advance. Otherwise they would not have used a “you’ve been accepted” letter as their test vehicle. Who’s that dumb anyways? Haven’t these people ever heard of Murphy’s Law?</p>
<p>This whole thread has gotten out of control. It was human error, plain and simple. The mistake was caught in a timely manner and rectified. Personally, I would not want have my child attend a school that admitted them due to a computer glitch.</p>
<p>So you’re saying that if a goal is made the highest priority, or even a priority at all, mistakes won’t happen? No, mistakes will happen, people are not infallible. </p>
<p>And if Vassar made it a priority to protect the emotional state of applicants, Vassar would admit everyone of their applicants because being rejected will cause some emotional pain (to those who sincerely applied to Vassar anyway and not for the hell of it). And admissions’ job is not to make all the applicants happy. Their job is to select the best students they feel embody Vassar college and will succeed at Vassar.</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li><p>USNWR would NEver do that. </p></li>
<li><p>I don’t think the number of applications would drop as much as you think, because most people would realize that Vassar’s rank fell because of a simple human error. In fact, USNWR reputation could suffer for penalizing a college for a insignificant thing (relative to their selection criteria and the college as a whole)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My reference to “forces at play” was fairly obvious in my post, I thought, and fairly recurrent themes on this website, namely, i) everyone’s obsession with ranking; ii) the level of competition for limited spaces at “elite” schools; iii) the colleges’ complicity in stoking drive for prestige; iv) the lack of concern that colleges have in how this all affects the children and their families. All of these forces played a role here.</p>
<p>I never suggested that anyone lose their job. All I ask is that Vassar acknowledge publicly where its priorities lie.</p>
<p>It seems as if LurkerDad has a horse in this race…
Acknowledge where its priorities lie? Are you an adcom at Vassar? Are you a psychic who has the oh so valuable insight into the minds of adcoms? (If you are, there are many people here on CC who would pay you big bucks to hear what it is the adcoms supposedly think and feel). I find it odd that you are so insistent that Vassar has no regard for the students affected, or how students feel in general. As a matter of fact, Vassar with its close community feel and emphasis on education for personal benefit is a school that does seem to really care more about the students than the game of rankings and prestige. Were you or your child rejected from Vassar? Because you keep insisting they are heartless and uncaring.</p>
<p>I don’t have a dog in this fight but I do think Vassar could have shown some more empathy in the situation. </p>
<p>When UVA issued their ED decisions, Dean J “babysat” the blog and responded to nearly every post - she set up three posts, one for accepted, deferred and denied and let people discuss. And UVA’s announcement went off without a hitch as far as I can tell. I don’t have a dog in UVA’s admissions either, but I thought she did an amazing job to be sure the students felt heard.</p>
<p>That is nice, but what if DeanJ was Dean V? Nice to know she did a good job when her school went off without a glitch, but you can’t say anything about if she was doing the same job at Vassar. </p>