Approximately two weeks ago, University of California-Los Angeles officials caused a stir within the community when they falsely notified 894 wait-listed students of their acceptance to the school.

The university’s financial aid office sent the email to both admitted and wait-listed students to inform them about financial aid offers. The email was completely standard and gave no inclination about admission status until the last line, which congratulated the students on their acceptance to UCLA, said Ricardo Vzquez, university spokesman.

‘Everything in the email was fine, except for the last line,’ Vzquez said. ‘Obviously, for the students who were admitted, it was fine, but it sent a mixed message for the students who were still on the waiting list.’

Included in the email was a link that took the students to a revised provisional financial aid letter. Upon opening the email’s attached financial aid offers, the award letter made it clear wait-listed students were still on the waitlist, Vzquez said.

These mixed signals from the email and award letter inside caused confusion for the wait-listed students and their parents, Vzquez said.

‘On the one hand, you have the email line at the end congratulating them for the admission, and on the other hand, when they clicked on the link and went to the letter, it was very clear that they were still on the waiting list,’ Vzquez said.

The email was sent out during the weekend of April 6, so the office was not able to respond to calls from students and parents until the following Monday. To combat the issue, the financial aid office sent out a second email Monday afternoon, clarifying the situation, Vzquez said.

Despite the large volume of wait-listed students that received the email, Vzquez said the office was not overwhelmed with calls from applicants. Most of the callers expressed confusion regarding the situation rather than anger, he said.

‘We had a few calls from students who were confused,’ Vzquez said. ‘We told them that the original email’s purpose was to let them know that their provisional award letter had been changed and that it wasn’t intended to communicate the status of their admission.’

Students on the UCLA wait-list will not be notified of their application standings until after May 1 and will hear directly from the admissions office, Vzquez said.

The office apologized for its mistake and is looking into it. Officials attributed the mistake to human error, he said.

‘It was a very regrettable mistake because we understand and realize that this is a very difficult and anxious time for parents and students as they try to make those decisions on where to go to college,’ Vzquez said. ‘We sincerely apologize if those students might have been led to believe that they were admitted rather than still on the waiting list.’

This is not the first incident of false notification of admission within the UC system. In 2009, UC-San Diego sent out acceptance letters to 28,000 applicants who were actually rejected. In 2010, UC-Santa Barbara falsely admitted 60 wait-listed applicants, according to an April 10 article in the Los Angeles Times.

UCLA hopes to put in procedures to prevent an incident like this from occurring again, Vzquez said.

dspearl@syr.edu 

Published on April 19, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Diana: dspearl@syr.edu | @dianapearl_