mistaken acceptance emails

[mamselle]

How long does it usually take to recognize such a mistake?

I wonder if, legally speaking, it makes a difference if enough time has passed between a student mistakenly receiving an acceptance letter and a university acknowledging the mistake for the student to have declined acceptances at other schools. Thus the university's mistake led to a student to losing opportunities.

I think they knew within a few weeks; they were certainly advertising for adjuncts all over the place rather soon after the article appeared in the news.

It wasn't an upper-tier school, exactly, but a very respectable one, so anyone who thought they were borderline and got an acceptance letter would have jumped at it.

M.

[dismalist]

BU famously underestimated their first year student classes many years in the 80's and 90's. I think they purposely overstuffed to make money off tuition while not spending what they should have in dorm space. Virginia Tech does this even now. I'm surprised students fall for this, but I guess they value the name on the degree more than a livable dorm?

What do you mean? Are you saying the students are being tricked about their acceptance being based on merit (rather than profit motive) or tricked into going to a supposedly 'good' school with poor management? Or something else?

My university has far more undergrads than they have available dorms, so many students have to figure out their own living arrangements. But I think most know this going in, because it's not exactly a secret (info is in the welcome packet sent to new students, on the school website, etc.). So I don't know if they "fell for" anything as much as they thought it was worth attending in spite of the shortage of dorm space.

Yeah, we have these things called markets, even for housing. As long as one knows ahead of time, there is no problem.

[mamselle]

Ummm.....with several other large schools that attract many out-of-state or international students who both drive up the price of housing, and lower availability into the negative numbers, I wouldn't say that's an example of the market "working," exactly.

This school was in the process of building a new dorm, which had to be hurry-up-finished; they also contracted with many local landlords for a year- or two-year agreement so they could follow up on the promised housing the letters specified.

That knocked out available housing for at least six other nearby schools, as well as a dozen or more that were not very far away.

Again--the 'market' didn't work in that case. People had to do a lot of extra work to make things 'work.'

The critiques of this stance in Harvey Cox' book comes to mind:

   https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659681

M.

[dismalist]

Ummm.....with several other large schools that attract many out-of-state or international students who both drive up the price of housing, and lower availability into the negative numbers, I wouldn't say that's an example of the market "working," exactly.

This school was in the process of building a new dorm, which had to be hurry-up-finished; they also contracted with many local landlords for a year- or two-year agreement so they could follow up on the promised housing the letters specified.

That knocked out available housing for at least six other nearby schools, as well as a dozen or more that were not very far away.

Again--the 'market' didn't work in that case. People had to do a lot of extra work to make things 'work.'

The critiques of this stance in Harvey Cox' book comes to mind:

   https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659681

M.

New houses get built by greedy developers [if the nimby's allow it]. I saw it happen before my very eyes.

[mamselle]

In two weeks?

Did they have magic wands?

M.

[dismalist]

In two weeks?

Did they have magic wands?

M.

It has to be known ahead of time, as I said.

Trust in greed.

[kaysixteen]

Since, as someone implied above, it is always possible for a school to have more students matriculating than they had imagined, i.e., a higher than expected yield rate, exactly what is best practices for admissions depts to try to figure out how many students to admit to get the desired yield?

Now an offer of a full scholarship is not just a mere offer of acceptance, and to revoke such an offer would, presumably, be a PR nightmare for the school, at the very least?

[theteacher]

That's why I double-check every task done by admin staff. They're incompetent. Double-checking is more critical for tasks done on Mondays and Fridays (before and after weekends).

[Puget]

Since, as someone implied above, it is always possible for a school to have more students matriculating than they had imagined, i.e., a higher than expected yield rate, exactly what is best practices for admissions depts to try to figure out how many students to admit to get the desired yield?

Now an offer of a full scholarship is not just a mere offer of acceptance, and to revoke such an offer would, presumably, be a PR nightmare for the school, at the very least?

This is what we pay admissions staff to figure out. Based on some service work I did with our admissions folks (who are amazing!), here's what I understand. They use historical data to estimate the yield rate and usually get it about right within the margins of error. For a residential college, a higher than expected yield is a huge problem for housing-- you can't just over-enroll as you have no place to put the extra students. The solution is to do it in waves until the class is full-- first early action applicants, then general admissions deadline applicants, then waitlisted applicants. They also admit a small number of students as "mid-years"-- starting spring semester-- since there is always a bit of melt after fall semester. Students can request to be mid-years in order to take a gap semester to travel, volunteer or work. 

Sometimes though this process fails. In 2008, when I was in grad school at a big state flagship, the financial crisis hit between them sending out offers and the acceptance deadline. A whole bunch of students who would otherwise have gone to private colleges or out of state were no longer in a position to do so financially, so the yield rate shot up. They ended up having to rent most of a hotel to house the extra students until melt made room for them on campus. A costly error, but hard to see how they could have prevented it under those circumstances.

[Volhiker78]

I have a daughter currently waiting on college decisions.  We were thrilled when she was accepted by a SLAC and offered a nice merit scholarship.  I was surprised because we chose not to submit test scores and I always assumed that by doing that, we were essentially forgoing any merit aid.  I admit that I privately thought  "maybe they have screwed up like these other schools" but since it has been a week now and no further correspondence,  I think we are in the clear!!!

[mamselle]

Many schools are foregoing test scores in decision-making now, so it may not be an issue.

M.

[Caracal]

Since, as someone implied above, it is always possible for a school to have more students matriculating than they had imagined, i.e., a higher than expected yield rate, exactly what is best practices for admissions depts to try to figure out how many students to admit to get the desired yield?

Now an offer of a full scholarship is not just a mere offer of acceptance, and to revoke such an offer would, presumably, be a PR nightmare for the school, at the very least?

I think it has gotten harder because students apply to more schools now. My impression is that schools now use formulas based on whether students visited campus, or have family members who went to the school and things like that. You can see how that could go wrong, however, either because of some sort of change or just because of pure chance.

Admitted students are often making choices between schools with pretty similar profiles. Much of the time, they don't really have a good sense of what they actually value or where they would do well or what their interests are. Put all that together and you can have weird bursts of popularity for a school based on all kinds of odd factors and it might be difficult for admissions to see that coming.

[Puget]

I have a daughter currently waiting on college decisions.  We were thrilled when she was accepted by a SLAC and offered a nice merit scholarship.  I was surprised because we chose not to submit test scores and I always assumed that by doing that, we were essentially forgoing any merit aid.  I admit that I privately thought  "maybe they have screwed up like these other schools" but since it has been a week now and no further correspondence,  I think we are in the clear!!!

That would really defeat the whole point of moving to test-optional admissions, which is that the SAT and ACT don't always provide the best picture of a student, and correlate highly with who has the resources and parental knowhow to do a lot of test prep, raising equity issues. The equity issues would just be compounded if you didn't give merit aid for those who chose to not submit scores. "Test optional" really needs to mean that there isn't a penalty for not submitting the test, and the application will be evaluated on the other elements equally with those who do submit tests.

Congrats to your daughter, I'm sure she earned it!

[Volhiker78]

Thanks.   I agree with your comments regarding the standardized tests but I just questioned how committed the schools are regarding 'test optional'.  At another competitive college,  she got an interesting email in December.  The email said that if she could provide additional information, e.g. updated standardized test scores, they could make a decision soon but if she didn't submit any new information, she would be deferred until March.  Again, we decided not to submit the scores.  As further information, we are Asian American and my guess is that among this cohort, test scores are high.  So,  I had told my wife (not my daughter) that not submitting test scores might put her at a disadvantage.  Anyway,  we are glad that at least one school didn't penalize her for this. 

[Parasaurolophus]

I received an acceptance and a rejection to Toronto's PhD program. I was, in fact, rejected.