<p>?</p>
<p>Human error <em>on the part of Vassar</em>, all the more reason for Vassar to show empathy.</p>
<p>^ </p>
<p>okay, hugs all around. Better now?</p>
<p>Dean J has been, by her choice, a participant on CC for quite a while. I believe there was even a congratulatory thread when she won a wedding gown in a contest, IIRC. While CC is fortunate to have some adcomm participation, they are few and far between. They are very helpful when they are there, but they are in the minority. Her approach seems wonderful and could serve as a model for other schools. UVA is a much larger school with a much larger incoming class and pool of applicants. It may make good business sense to have an adcomm from larger schools active on cc. Did DeanJ chat on CC as the acceptances/deferrals/denials came out, or was it on a UVA admissions blog?</p>
<p>It is not reasonable, IMO, to expect an adcom to jump into cc with no familiarity of the community, knowing some threads are being followed by the media, and post individual responses. Vassar has contacted the students privately. IMO that is as it should be. Yes there were a handful of the affected students posting on cc and their pain and confusion was palpable, but IMO the school handled the situation, perhaps a bit clumsily at first, given the late hour on a Friday afternoon, but has done their best to address thie situation, the students affected and the Vassar community. To claim that the school is uncaring or unfeeling shows incredible ignorance of the Vassar community. I find the comments from LurkerDad to be increasingly peculiar.</p>
<p>@HighlandMom I think you mean sympathy in this case. And I think they have shown sympathy and, as has been said so far in this thread, responded to the best of their ability. They weren’t too quick to the trigger with anything, informed the students affected with about an hour, let the families have a weekend to cool down and take a step back to view this from all angles, and now are interacting personally with the students and have apologized profusely.</p>
<p>Apparently LurkerDad is a Vassar Alum <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11161732-post33.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11161732-post33.html</a> When were you there, lurkerdad?</p>
<p>I invite you to join the alum discussion that is occurring on Linkedin, LurkerDad. There are cogent arguments on all sides of this issue.</p>
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<p>Really? From a former post-college roommate who had such a work study job at his college’s admissions office…I was under the impression they just did lower-level clerical filing, organization, and computer work and were restricted from doing anything which may have anything to do with actual admission decisions. </p>
<p>Granted, this was back in the days before popular internet…</p>
<p>I know a few things…Like the fact that “people” at the wheel were engaged in activities other than their job while this huge blunder was transpiring under their watch. I hope the Admin feels responsible enough to investigate what the “employees” were doing at work during this phase. So sorry for the victims.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m new to the site and I’m a bit amazed at the number of, “tough break, get over it and move on,” posts on this subject. It’s easy to sit back and play desktop quarterback, emotionally removed from the incident and just <shrug> but being the parent of a '16 I can tell you I would be saddened if my student had to go through this ordeal. I’m betting there are quite a few Admissions members that are more than upset over the error too.</shrug></p>
<p>My D received a “likely letter,” this week(to a different institution) and we were elated over it but after reading about this Vassar mess my anxiety level is starting to creep back up to where it was when we were cranking out the initial applications.</p>
<p>If you’re involved in the admissions process(student or parent) and don’t feel for those students, your apathy level is just beyond my comprehension.</p>
<p>Why are you surprised, cobrat? I was merely conjecturing, as I do not know what responsibilites are assigned to work study students, or what the relationship is with IT staff or consultants and on site staff. But it would not be outside the range of believability to think that students may be more technologically facile than some a fulltime staff. It was a thought, and it is possible. </p>
<p>I find it interesting that the ED II thread in the Vassar forum, where some of the studnets affected were posting their experiences as they unfolded, has been quiescent for over 24 hours. Perhaps the students are telling us something.</p>
<p>We are now joined her by a newbie who seems to be itching to disclose some infrmation. Hard to assess the credibility of such comments.</p>
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</shrug></p>
<p>I would be more than “saddened” if this happened to my kid! However, I would move on mentally and emotionally asap. What would be the purpose in making this a major travesty? And suing? Seriously? </p>
<p>No, the best thing to do would be to square our shoulders and focus on the most important thing: what to do next to ensure that my kid finds the right school.</p>
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<p>LurkerDad, I fail to understand how any of these forces have played any role in a computer error. The forces you are describing have a lot to do with schools trying to increase applications and move up on the US News rankings. However, I simply don’t understand how you get from that to the Vassar error. Do you think that because the school was trying to increase applicants, it made the error? Do you feel that in its drive to move up the rankings, Vassar gave short shrift to its computer or oversight systems? Even if Vassar didn’t spend as much time on computers as on increasing applicants, is there any evidence that the error was the result of that? Couldn’t this just be a case of someone screwing up and the admissions officers (many of whom are not particularly proficient in figuring out how to post decisions) not recognizing that double and triple checking would have been a good idea. </p>
<p>Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake–Vassar clearly didn’t want this to happen, it was clearly not in the school’s best interest and if, in fact, their main concern was to move up the rankings and increase applications, this is the last thing they would do, because it may well have a negative impact on students’ perceptions of the school.</p>
<p>While I was one who said, mistakes happen and move on, I also said that students should have a little more resiliency and their parents should buoy them through it. These are not “children.” Most are nearing, if not already, 18 years old. They can fight a war but cant handle a computer glitch? It was a mistake, but it’s not the first time as Ive also pointed out,</p>
<p>Not getting into an ED school is hugely disappointing on its own, and certainly this situation complicates those feelings, but it’s not going to determine an entire future. Believe me, my kid really had his eye on an Ivy for ED three years ago. While he got over it fairly quickly, others rejected from their ED school took it quite hard. I think we need to recognize that some of the students in this group would be massively disappointed even IF Vassar had done everything right and students had gotten the right notice to begin with. This just made it all the worse. </p>
<p>Having sympathy in this situation is not the same as saying Vassar should be burned at the stake. I honestly believe the best thing a parent can show their kid is how to rise above. There is nothing about the college admissions process that should define a kid… good OR bad. Resiliency. </p>
<p>I will also say that although any rejection might be hurtful, I do believe that it all works out in the end for the majority and they’ll land at a school where they couldnt imagine having gone anywhere else!</p>
<p>Ok, here’s a RL example. The other night I was 10 minutes late for my son’s school concert, and as a result I missed his performance (then had to sit through 90 minutes listening to other kids perform, natch). I could have made a hundred plausible work-related excuses as to why I could not get there for the start, it was out of my control, mistakes happen, gosh I’m so sorry, but the fact is that I did not make his performance a priority. Just as Vassar did not make it a priority to protect the applicants from emotional harm. That’s all I’m saying.</p>
<p>Those examples are not only different, you are making huge assumptions that there is simply no data to support. If you left in plenty of time to get to the concert and had every intention of being there but had a car accident or got caught in a traffic jam and missed hearing your son, you did not “fail to make his concert or feelings a priority”. Something happened to cause the outcome. Even if the accident was YOUR FAULT, you acknowledged it and felt badly that you missed the concert and apologized. It doesn’t mean that you failed to protect his feelings. That is a huge leap that makes no sense.</p>
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<p>Indeed, but one has to remember that this was ED TWO. So, not necessarily first choice love interest. The apps could have been ‘Hail Mary’s’ to a super reach hoping that the extra ED boost would pull them thru. While we have no way to know, it seems to me that the mistake is not as glaring as it would have been for the ED I applicant.</p>
<p>LD,</p>
<p>What if you went to your s’s concert but inadvertently went to the wrong location, or at the wrong time, or on the wrong day? Does it truly mean you weren’t protecting him from emotional harm because you didnt triple check the time/date/location, or perhaps you wrote it down wrong in the first place? It was a MISTAKE. It has nothing to do with intent or effort to avoid emotional harm.</p>
<p>Lurkerdad,</p>
<p>What if you encountered a car crash on the way to your son’s concert, with the victims in dire need of help? Would you drive right past them (maybe simply calling 911 only) so you can make it to your sons concert? Or better yet, what if YOU got into a car accident on the way to your sons concert and missed it?</p>
<p>The point I’m trying to make is: even if you make something a priority, that doesn’t mean it WILL happen perfectly, with out any mistakes or faults. You have faulty reasoning.</p>
<p>LOL cortana,
Did you read post #214?</p>
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<p>And so how long should DS rage about your failure? How many days should he remind you of your shortcoming? Should he make the leap that because you failed to make him a priority *that day *that you just don’t care about his emotional well being at all? </p>
<p>I mean, someone screws up, they apologize and admit their mistake. You either accept it and drop it or you decide that you can no longer associate yourself with that person because you just can’t count on them. What you don’t do is stick around, continually rehashing their shortcomings or keep yourself occupied by thinking up a new name to call them every day when they get home.</p>
<p>Are some of you saying that Vassar did everything it possibly could have to keep this error from happening? There’s not one more thing they could have checked before sending the emails? If you think there was one more thing they could have done, then it wasn’t important enough to them to do it.</p>