Receiving an acceptance letter from your dream University and seeing "Congratulations on your Admission! We are delighted to welcome you." could be a wonderful experience for applicants but what happens if you were "mistakenly" accepted? This was the case for the 277 students who applied to the Masters Program of Columbia University, an Ivy League University located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City.
Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health had falsely delivered acceptance letters to 277 applicants last Wednesday, February 15, 2017.
It was said that the Emails "incorrectly implied" that the applicants were able to get into its Masters Program School of Public Health. Columbia University announced that it took necessary measures to correct its mistake by dispatching a follow - up apology email after an hour.
Columbia University apologized and expressed its dismay because of the stress and confusion the mistake may have caused the 277 applicants.
"We deeply apologize for this miscommunication." Julie Kornfeld, Vice Dean for Education at Columbia University told ABC News in a statement last Friday, February 17, 2017. "We value the energy and enthusiasm the applications bring to the admission process and regret the stress and confusion caused by the mistake." Julie Kornfeld continued.
Columbia University blamed the mistake on possible "human errors" and assured that they are working assiduously to strengthen their internal procedures to ensure that mistake does not happen again in the future.
It is not the first time that a University had mistakenly accepted applicants. Just last year, University at Buffalo mistakenly sent 5,000 acceptance letters as well and corrected its mistake a few hours later. The University deeply regrets the error and informed the students that their application was still under review. Carnegie Mellon made a similar mistake in 2015 by accepting over 800 applicants for its Masters Program in Computer Science.
