Vassar = Dream Crusher: Tells 76 Applicants They Were Accepted When They Were Not
Vassar the Dream Crusher
Imagine this, you are counting the days, the hours, the minutes to find out whether your high school senior will be accepted to the college of their dreams. There is a whole lot riding on the simple message of “congratulations…” or “we’re sorry to inform you…” that is delivered via letters, emails or websites.
So, you’re anxiously waiting to find out about your kid’s future. You log onto the college’s website and there waiting for you is amazing news. Your child has been accepted! But it turns out, they weren’t, it was just a computer error. Cue biggest “Wah-Wa” ever. A senior’s worst nightmare? Sadly, this scenario rang true for 76 students who had applied to Vassar…
for early decisions at the prestigious Poughkeepsie, New York school. The applicants logged in after 4pm on Friday and were presented with letters saying that they had been accepted (when they had not). The glitch had been fixed by 4:30 but in that half hour, many a dreams were crushed. But on the flipside, there were 46 of the 122 applicants who logged in at that time who were actually accepted.
The school president, Catharine Hill, said in a statement, “We understand how very upsetting this is for those students who viewed the inaccurate decisions that we posted online, and we are very sorry to have added to the overall stress of the college admissions process for these students and their families.”
To make amends, the school will be refunding their application fees to the students who were informed that did get in when they hadn’t. Do you think the school should do more?
I think you need to proofread! You have virtually the same paragraph twice.
Not your best day today, huh?
I had something similar happen with the Naval Academy. Truth be told, it took me years to get over it. Even now it is a woulda, coulda, shoulda in the back of my mind from time to time. It is a lot harder to get over a yes, oh wait wait we were wrong than an outright no.
What made mine sting was I was qualified, but they wanted me to go to the perp school first and admn missed that I was about 2 months too old to do that and graduate by the age cutoff.
Prep not perp….
Do more? How about accept the students who were told yes? No take backsies. Seriously, this is so extremely unprofessional of them. Would it have been so hard to just man up and just take the extra thirty (paying) students?
Would it really have hurt Vasser to take 76 additional students Early Decision and then 76 fewer in the Regular Decision round?
At least half of the rejected students will be accepted somewhere better anyway. That’s how small, highly selective liberal arts schools like Vassar manage their yields — they reject students who are too qualified because they know they will turn down the offer of admission anyway. So I’m not really crying for these students — they will be fine.
This happened to me, with a different school, when I applied to graduate school many years ago. I got 2 acceptances, and gave my regrets to one school. I was very surprised when I got a phone call a few days later from someone in the rejected school’s admissions office asking for more details, because apparently, I wasn’t supposed to have been accepted! Needless to say, I was very happy that I had rejected them first….
I feel bad for those students. To be accepted then have the offer recinded must be awful for them. I get that mistakes happen, but this type of mistake shouldn’t ever happen. I think they should reevaluate each student’s case and for those who honestly have a decent chance to get in but didn’t quite make the requirements, they should be given a second chance to either bring their GPA up and then be allowed to enroll either the following semester or the following yr. It’s the least Vassar can do.
Honestly Vassar should have admitted to their mistake and accepted those students.
I am sure those students were disappointed, but I think apologizing and refunding their application fee is enough. Unfortunately, people make mistakes, computers have glitches and sometimes things happen that aren’t supposed to. It’s called life. I think students applying to Vassar are ready to start learning that lesson.