<p>
</p>
<p>So typical.</p>
<p>What Hunt said. The likelihood is, this was an off-the-cuff, in-the-moment response from someone who was expressing outrage in the immediate aftermath. Cut him some slack! Let’s cut everyone some slack! Let he who has never accidentally pushed the wrong button on a computer cast the first stone …</p>
<p>Something very similar happened 20 years ago when I was chairing grad admissions for my department. A "John Smith’ had applied to chemistry, I believe. He was a star and had been nominated for a big university fellowship. As luck would have it, another John Smith had applied to our department. He was not a star. As you can guess, the graduate school contacted our John Smith and told him that he had been admitted and awarded the university fellowship. When the mistake was realized, someone from the graduate school contacted our JS. He apologized for the mistake but he also told JS that it would be very difficult to finish our program. (That argument works when you have a Ph.D. completion rate well below 50%, as we did, but not when you have an AB completion rate above 90%.) JS was very gracious and decided to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>from the article:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Four whole minutes. Clear the court calendar!</p>
<p>Honestly, I would probably be more upset about simply getting rejected then Vassar screwing up anyway. It’s not like Vassar originally accepted those students and decided to reject them; an acceptance letter was accidentally put up on their accounts.</p>
<p>OMG, MommaJ, give the guy a break. He was really excited for his nephew. Then the family was grievously disappointed because of the school’s admittedly terrible mistake. So he made an unguarded remark to a reporter. Why not save your outrage in the event he actually follows through on a lawsuit? You’ve never said anything rash when you were upset? Then you’re a better person than I am.</p>
<p>lol at the uncle who had his nephew’s login ID and found out before his nephew.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It pours salt in the wound, though. And these day, I’d bet most kids announced their acceptance on Facebook, especially since this was the 1st choice school.</p>
<p>Another interesting wrinkle. If Vassar had accepted these kids anyway but told them they weren’t wanted, would that admission be binding? That might be uncomfortable for everyone involved.</p>
<p>
You mean say “We’ll let you come here but we don’t really WANT you”? What purpose would that serve? What would it even mean anyway? Would they be treated differently? Made to dorm in closets? Fed worms? Given F’s even if they excelled? I can’t imagine how that would be manifested in actions. If the school were willing to admit them, and to accept their money, then it would be obliged to provide them the same opportunity and services as every other student.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m also a bit perplexed by that comment on as a 3.6 GPA sounds about right for what’s needed to be accepted to Vassar even back in the early-mid '90s from a reasonably decent high school. </p>
<p>If anything, some of his ECs and geographic location may have given him a leg up as they don’t fit the types of ECs common among most Vassar applicants. And he’s male which from what I’ve seen in my HS class’ college stats and heard from Vassar alums…gives him another leg up due to Vassar’s efforts to balance out their campus’ gender ratio.</p>
<p>@geeps I noticed that too haha</p>
<p>Vassar is one of the most selective LAC’s in the country, and, as with just about every other college, it’s probably gotten much tougher to get in since the 90’s. If a 3.6 and XY chromosomes were sufficient, my S would be holding a Vassar degree right now–but he got rejected ED 8 years ago. (But then, he wasn’t from Texas…) I doubt a 3.6 does it these days absent other compelling attributes. It’s tough out there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, I mean, some people don’t want to go to a school where they aren’t wanted. Since ED is binding, if Vassar had let the acceptances stand, then the students would be forced to come there.</p>
<p>I’m sure the school would treat them the same.</p>
<p>A 3.6 certainly isn’t a deal breaker. However, in the article there was no mention of course rigor, APs et cetera.</p>
<p>Percent who had GPA of 3.75 and higher 58%
Percent who had GPA between 3.50 and 3.74 26%
Percent who had GPA between 3.25 and 3.49 12%
Percent who had GPA between 3.00 and 3.24 4%</p>
<p>[C</a>. First-time, First-year (Freshman) Admission - Institutional Research - Vassar College](<a href=“Institutional Research – Vassar College”>Institutional Research – Vassar College)</p>
<p>geeps - I know. I really hope i don’t do that to my kid ha ha.
If he’d just waited and let his nephew log into his own account and view the results of his own application, in their case it never would have happened.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Back in the early-mid’90s, I knew some males from my year and older classes who were getting admitted with GPAs as low as 3.25-3.3 whereas the minimum GPA for admitted females tended to hover somewhere in the 3.4-3.5 range. </p>
<p>Granted, some of that may also be the fact most at my high school tended to go off to elite/respectable universities as STEM majors so classmates…especially males who do go off to respectable/elite LACs tend to be a tiny minority even among those who tend to head off to top-20-30 universities.</p>
<p>From the Vassar board:
</p>
<p>^^Oh, well that makes sense, collegealum. I would think if Vassar were going to do that, they just wouldn’t tell the students they had been admitted by mistake. I mean, really, it’s probably not like they didn’t WANT these students (like some kind of undesirables), there were just better candidates to increase diversity, or not enough room, or they already had too many art majors, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t want to stereotype based on inadequate info, but it appears to me that the kid in the article may be a URM, and he might have an uncle helping him with college apps for very good reasons. This may be a family that really feels cheated–especially if Vassar courted the kid before. We certainly don’t have enough facts to dump on them.</p>
<p>We do, however, have enough facts to dump on Vassar. As I said before, I think it’s inexcusable to let this happen. If I were a college president, I’d be firing my IT people if this happened.</p>
<p>I’m not at all surprised by the Vassar reaction. Three years ago - I had a similar experience with my son. It happened on a much smaller scale and was not widely reported. He basically received an email from the regional admissions rep congratulating him on his admission and asking if he had any questions as he made his final decision to contact her, etc, etc. The problem was that this email came several days after he received an admissions denial from his first choice school. The regional rep was somewhat apologetic when I called her (son was too disgusted to deal with it) - but blamed it on a - you guessed it - computer glitch. I wanted to find out more about this “glitch” and how many students were affected by it. I ended up reaching the associate head of admissions at this prestigious university - who informed me that the glitch had been tiny - only a handful of students affected - and that I needed to get over it. He was nasty, snotty and condescending. We have all agreed that son is much better off not being at this university.</p>