MIT may have temporarily misled applicants into thinking they were admitted to the school when they weren't, the Huffington Post reported. It wasn't as if the school sent students the wrong acceptance letter, as was mostly the case in the rather good movie with rather poor reviews, "Admission." Instead, they sent an email (that had only general information, not admittance information) with the inaccurate footer, "You are on this list because you are admitted to MIT," to a list of applicants that hadn't yet been and/or weren't going to be accepted.

A Feb. 5 blog post on mitadmissions.org by Chris Peterson, Admissions Counselor for Web Communications at MIT, explained the gaffe. In preparation for a blast email via Mail Chimp, a marketing website that helps colleges, companies, etc. organize email contacts and send out mass emails, Peterson and a colleague were cleaning lists to reflect those students who asked to be removed. Instead of their older, slower method -- something like individually deleting names and creating a new list -- they updated in the quicker, Mail Chimp recommended way. While sorting through both admits and applicants, somehow the footer for the admits' emails, "You are on this list because you are admitted to MIT," transferred to the applicants' emails, even after Peterson and his colleague had thoroughly checked the email (though he didn't say if he sent a test version to one of their account first).

Peterson doesn't believe many applicants were fooled by the footer, for he only first heard about the error from an MIT threat on College Confidential. Wary of the message, the initial poster finished his or her comment with, "This is a joke, right? I assume everyone got it?" while subsequent comments followed that assumption. And that's the logical response. Colleges don't confirm admission through an email footer, but a thick envelope.

"My guess is that overall a very small number of our current applicants even noticed this; I didn't even know until someone pointed me to the MITCC thread about it," Peterson wrote, before referring to his own admission process (and being rejected by 7 of the 10 schools to which he applied). "But any number of people getting this kind of mixed signal is too many. I've been on that side and I know how it feels. And if you've now felt it too, in part because of me, I'm so, so sorry. If you want to talk, post below or send me an email."