Carnegie Mellon University is retracting a red-carpet welcome this week for about 800 applicants who received acceptance notices by mistake.
The prestigious Oakland-based school issued a rare public apology Tuesday to the affected students, who sought admission to a graduate computer science program. Carnegie Mellon sent them acceptance letters via email Monday, a flub the school blamed on "serious mistakes in our process for generating" the letters.
"Once the error was discovered, the university moved quickly to notify affected applicants," the school said in a statement. "We understand the disappointment created by this mistake and deeply apologize to the applicants for this miscommunication."
Spokesman Ken Walters declined to elaborate, although the school said it is reviewing a notification process "to help ensure this does not happen in the future."
Higher education consultants called the error the latest in a string of high-profile acceptance mix-ups at schools across the country. The trouble at Carnegie Mellon stands out because it happened at the graduate level, said Mike Reilly, executive director at the Washington-based American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
"Usually you see it in central admissions operations, usually at the undergraduate level" where admissions workers deal with thousands of applications, he said.
Reilly estimated the affected program at Carnegie Mellon likely enrolls no more than a few dozen students. That faulty letters went to 800 people suggests "extremely high" demand for the program, he said. The international research university enrolls more than 12,000 students.
"Sometimes I think people just hastily try to get their offers out without paying adequate attention to their (computer) programs," Reilly said. He said declining proportions of undergraduate applicants are accepting offers from many schools, a trend that might contribute to pressure on admissions workers.
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