This Saturday, 294 students who had applied early decision to Johns Hopkins got happy news in their inboxes. Embrace the YES! the email read. Welcome to the Class of 2019! We can’t wait for you to get to campus. The only problem? The students had been sent the email in error–they had actually been rejected from Hopkins, not accepted.
In these days of mass email blasts, it’s easy to click the wrong button and send the incorrect email to hundreds of recipients. MIT has done it. UNC and UCLA have done it. Hopkins isn’t even the only university in the Baltimore area to make an admissions email goof–Goucher did the same thing earlier this year.
Still, a “yes–oh wait, we mean no!” is a cruel message to get, especially when Hopkins is harder than ever to get into. “We apologize to the students affected and to their families,” David Phillips, Hopkins’s vice provost for admissions and financial aid told the Washington Post. “Admissions decision days are stressful enough. We very much regret having added to the disappointment felt by a group of very capable and hardworking students, especially ones who were so committed to the idea of attending Johns Hopkins that they applied early decision.”
Ouch!