Just two months after sending acceptance notifications and orientation invites to 29,000 rejected freshman applicants, campus officials misinformed 607 transfer admits that they had been rejected.
Two weeks ago, UCSD posted the accidental rejections on their Web site, where the 11,400 transfer applicants were informed of their admission status after a month-and-a-half-long evaluation process.
Assistant Vice Chancellor of Admissions Mae W. Brown said she apologized for the ’emotional roller-coaster’ that the error caused. The error was fixed early last week, and the accepted students ‘mdash; who all had GPAs of 3.0 or above ‘mdash; were notified of their acceptance a few days later, she said.
The 11,400 UCSD transfer applicants comprised one of the campus’ largest batches ‘mdash; a 16.7 percent increase over last year’s pool.
Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said mistakes of this kind have happened before.
‘But the advent of automated systems means that potentially you could put any mistake on steroids,’ he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. ‘In the old days, maybe it was one letter going in the wrong envelope. Now you push the wrong button and thousands of people get the wrong message.’
Readers can contact Sarah Smith at [email protected].