Remember those Southwest Airlines commercials, where things go horribly wrong and the voice-over suggests a vacation? For the UC San Diego admissions office, this happened on March 30, when an e-mail intended to invite the approximately 18,000 students admitted to tour the campus went instead to the entire applicant pool of more than 46,000 applicants.
“Wanna get away?”
In fairness, the majority of jilted UCSD applicants had already been given admissions decisions, and the erroneous e-mail merely invited students to tour the campus on Admit Day, but still, the implication was clear. To compound the confusion, the electronic news trickled ironically into in-boxes on April Fools’ Day.
While unfortunate, this type of mishap could easily happen anywhere, including UCLA. So exactly how did this happen, what recourse do disaffected students have and what can we learn from it?
In recent years, admissions operations across the country have increasingly gone online, from applying to conveying final decisions electronically. While I suspect this switch was made largely to conserve costs, it was also done to make the admissions process more user-friendly, said Kevin Reed, UCLA vice chancellor of legal affairs.
“As we all work to try to make these processes fast and transparent, we increase the risk that problems like this happen,” Reed said, adding that prior to the UCSD snafu it was possible for “a single individual with a single click (to send e-mails) to the entire universe of admissions applicants.”
In response to the UCSD incident, admissions colleagues at peer institutions have reflected on their own processes and seem united in sympathy and support for the students, families and for UCSD.
“At UCLA we have smaller events for various groups (of admitted students), so we don’t send mass notifications,” said Vu Tran, director of undergraduate admissions and relations with schools, “but that does not mean we cannot make mistakes; keep knocking on wood.”
Tim Brunold, associate dean and director of undergraduate admission at USC spoke very highly of UCSD’s admissions operation, and like Tran, applauded its quick response and ownership of responsibility for its miscue.
“Mistakes like this are very possible,” Brunold said. “This is one of the major reasons we’ve chosen to avoid giving admission decisions in any form but paper.”
At UCLA students are notified via e-mail that a decision has been made, and are only sent a decision via mail if they don’t log in to check their decision within two weeks.
Call me old school, but what’s wrong with snail mail?
“There’s something satisfying about receiving the “˜large envelope’ without prior notice while the “˜small envelope’ provides unequivocal resolution,” said Ben Lah, the associate director of college counseling at Brentwood School. “While I understand the convenience of online decisions and that mistakes have been few and far between, an element has been taken away.”
I believe the element he’s referring to is excitement. There is just a certain magic to getting a big, colorful packet with a stamped or laser-printed signature from administrative leadership, just as there is a finality and closure that comes with the small envelope with the also-stamped or laser-printed signature from the vice-administrative leadership.
And what of the beleaguered UCSD applicants? In these litigious times, are they going to sue? And do they have any case for admissions reconsideration?
In short: No, and no.
“There just isn’t a legal claim to be made,” Reed said, who also noted that being the unfortunate victim of a human error would likely not make them any more competitive in the application or appeal process. “I know from my colleagues at UCSD that they feel just terrible.”
When asked about possible recourse for students wronged in any admissions process, Brunold said it would likely be impossible to reconsider disaffected applicants from the standpoint of space available in the incoming freshman class. UCSD could consider offering special transfer advisement, much like how USC offers transfer counseling to denied students who were really set on attending USC.
Though I’m sure UCSD is still reeling from what Reed and Brunold both described as considerable public relations challenges ahead, I would think that lending an olive branch in the form of transfer counseling for this one-time cohort of jilted applicants could go a long way to improve this PR deficit.
As for what can be done to prevent future snafus, “I am certain that all campuses will have learned from (this) human error,” said Reed, who asserted that this incident is “a wake-up call to make sure we have electronic safeguards in place.”