Jamie Reidy calls out UCLA for its erroneous acceptance letters to 900 high school seniors.
The Associated Press reports that the students found out last weekend.
Campus spokesman Ricardo Vasquez says all the high school seniors who received the email are on the waiting list for admission, and will remain there for the time being.
The school’s financial aid office sent out a message Monday to clarify for the wait-listed students that they hadn’t been admitted, and offered an apology.
What did the second letter say, “You are not, in fact, a Bruin. More like a Bru-out.”
In a related note, UCLA’s admissions office will be posting two open positions.
Bruin basketball coach Ben Howland only wishes his players had this kind of pump fake abilities.
What do you think UCLA should do to make up for this?
Photo by: butupa
About Jamie Reidy
I can’t tell what the damage really is. Students may have gotten the wrong impression for a few days. It sounded to me like the financial aid office was clarifying what “being on a waitlist” means. Didn’t they know what “waitlisted” means? It’s never meant that the applicant has been admitted, just that he/she is on a list to be admitted if there are openings.
This may be one of those rare cases where offering an apology actually makes the situation worse.
Besides, in a public university the size of UCLA, making a mistake with only 900 people *who are not even students of UCLA* is in no way a “major” screw up. This is small potatoes.
WellOK, not sure if you read the actual article. But the kids were told they are getting financial aid for their freshman year. So, they naturally thought they got in.
To me, that’s a crushing emotional blow to a high school senior.
Lastly, since UCLA has @ 27K students, that’s less than 7000 per frosh class, which means 900 false acceptance letters is a mistake involving more than 10% of that class. “Small potatoes”? No, sir.
The linked article was only a few paragraphs. I see where I made a mistake. They thought they were admitted because of the Financial Aid email.
But, I’m still drawn to the TIMING of the two messages. The boneheadedly wrong email arrived “last weekend” and the apology arrived on “Monday.” So, they were told the wrong thing on Saturday and corrected on Monday. So, for at most 48 hours the applicants thought they had been admitted, only to find out that they had not.
In the meantime, what did they do? Cancel all their applications to other schools the minute they heard? Rush out and buy hundreds of dollars worth of UCLA labeled clothing that now has to be returned? I’m not sure the pain and suffering is worth any legal action or even worthy of a national news headline.
As far as the numbers stack up, don’t assume all 900 of those applicants are outraged. Subtract the ones on the waitlist who will get in anyway. Subtract the ones who would not have attended UCLA even if they were admitted outright. Of the ones left who would enroll for the first term, subtract the 25% or so who will not graduate. What you are left with, realistically, is more like 300 *would-be* students out of a student body of, what, 30,000?
I wasn’t trying to downplay the justified anger of any those applicants, just point out that from the larger social perspective that in the scale of things that the UC system can totally screw up, this is hardly a blip!
P.S. Realistically, presumably the applicants on the waitlist would probably have lower completion rates than students admitted outright, so it might be more than the average attrition rate. I’m just spitballing the odds here.
Over-thinking it much? The point is that UCLA screwed up and it sucks for the kids who put up Facebook posts and told everyone they knew that they had been accepted — only to now have to say, “Well, actually I didn’t get in.” Get it?
I’m clumsily trying to answer the author’s question, “What do you think UCLA should do to make up for this?”
So, I looked at how much damage they caused compared to what they did about it already. UCLA screwed up and humiliated 900 people very briefly by mistake. The people who made the mistake have been fired, and the agency responsible apologized. They have already made up for it. Are we suggesting that the UCLA President resign? Should the UC system pay out damage claims?
Some of the commentors to the USA Today piece suggest that UCLA is now obligated to admit them. I don’t think UCLA should have to. They never stopped being waitlisted even though they thought the weren’t.
Those humiliated applicants were never actually students of UCLA. If UCLA owes them anything, it is not because they are students. UCLA should be expected to be more professional and not make those kinds of mistakes. As far as what those applicants are now *entitled to*, I think not very much.
I just wonder how this ever made a national news story.
“The people who made the mistake have been fired, and the agency responsible apologized.”
Personally I think that’s enough. I haven’t been following this story, but yeah if the people responsible were indeed fired, then I think UCLA made up for it the only way they could.
As for why this made national news? Well I think it’s because the number is so large, and because of how important college is in our society at the moment.
I have no idea if anybody got fired; I was being sarcastic re: “two open positions…”
Crap, that’s why I thought someone got fired.
Great, so I didn’t read carefully enough AND I was overthinking. Deadly combination. : – )