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Carnegie-Mellon Sends Hundreds of Acceptance Letters By Mistake
An anonymous reader writes As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Carnegie-Mellon University mistakenly sent 800 acceptances for its Master of Science in Computer Science program. They're not saying "computer error," but what are the other explanations? High irony all around. The program accepts fewer than nine percent of more than 1,200 applicants, which places the acceptance level at about a hundred, so they're bad at math, too.
censored version of die hard on TV
A simple apology doesn't seem like it'd be enough. Is the school rich enough to offer a scholarship for the inconvenience? Like $500 scholarship to be used at any school. I imagine the disappointment would be great, hence the $500 figure I am suggesting.
I'm a PhD in CompSci, not a software engineer!
I suspect those that turned down other university offers for this one, only to find out they weren't accepted and no have no-where to go have basis for a lawsuit. And what about those that had scholarships at other schools and lost them? Mistakes like this, and such a critical point in your life, affect the whole of the rest of your life. It could change the entire trajectory of your career.
Little did the applicants know they were supposed to decrypt the "acceptance letters" using the provided CMU CS department decoder ring...
Come on baby! make it hurt so good!
sorry, blame my dendrite that reached over to the 80's section
Submitter can't be so dim that "human error" doesn't occur to him, can he?
(Females in the 21st century are too sainted to make this kind of mistake...)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
They should have waited to send out the fake acceptance letters on April 1st. They could have used the April Fools holiday as an excuse then.
They don't mail out their approval letters the old fashioned way? I bet they do that next year.
Reminds me of an experience I had with a university. I had submitted an application for a scholarship. Some time later, I received a letter saying they were missing some piece of information that I had to mail back before they could continue processing my application. A few days passed, and before I mailed in the information, I received a second letter saying that they now had all the information they required, so I didn't bother mailing it.
Weeks passed with no updates. After the deadline for when they were supposed to have gotten back to me came and went, I called them up, and guess what? They couldn't complete my application due to missing information. The same information that they'd requested in the first letter, but which I didn't send in because the follow-up letter had stated that they had all the information. It really pissed me off.
"Computer errors" in these situations usually mean a human entered data incorrectly or someone pushed the wrong button; not that a software bug turned 600 rejections into acceptance.
As HAL said: It can only be attributable to human error.
FUCK YOU, Rob, you sad McJob manager! I just got into Carnegie-Mellon's CS program for grad school! So you can SUCK MY DICK, Rob! And that goes for you too Stacey! This motherfucker right here is GOING PLACES, BITCH! So you can shove this smock right up your tight asses! And don't look to see me again, 'cause I'm going to be in Pittsburg getting my Masters on!
Oh look, I just got another letter from them. Must be to congratulate me AGAIN! Let's open it up, so I can shove it right in your FAT FACES!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
When I applied there for undergraduate, I was sent two rejection letters, four months apart.
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
Aren't we always hearing about this mythical shortage of STEM workers? Let's hope they're all black transwomen too, we need more diversity!
If the applicant is seriously underqualified and likely to fail, they should say so, give the specific reasons, and advise them not to enter the program.
Nevertheless, if they've actually sent out an acceptance--if it wasn't a forgery--they should honor the acceptance.
It's the right thing to do.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Why are we turning away applicants when MILLIONS (no citations provided) of STEM jobs remain unfilled? We just need MORE STEM graduates to stay competitive (no citation provided). Schools are turning away qualified and motivated applicants just to fill affirmative action quotas (No citation provided). We must do something! Think of the children[1]!
(In case you missed it that was sarcasm)
[1] Disclaimer; proper health care, nutrition, primary and secondary not included.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
CMU isn't going to do anything about this to those affected by this mistake. Their accrediting agency, Middle States Commission on Higher Education, http://www.msche.org/ will make you jump through numerous hoops before doing nothing. If you can get them to pony up a t-shirt, you'll be doing well. Take the t-shirt and move on to Plan B.
In twelve easy steps!
Accept all 800 students in a newly established online degree program. Inform those who successfully achieve an 3.75 their first year will be granted acceptance onto the campus.
write code and don't test!
Nope. Google does not care about the useless "where you went to school" nonsense.
I don't believe that for a second. It might not be of primary concern but I have zero doubt that if you went to MIT or Carnegie Mellon and graduated with an IT related degree, it WILL factor into the hiring decision at Google.
They want to know you have skills and abilities.
Of course they do. That's precisely why they care whether or not you graduated from a known good training program. It is evidence that you are likely to have the sort of skills they are looking for. They'll test you further but it is a piece of evidence.
Show up with a brilliant invention under your arm and they will gladly take an ITT Tech graduate.
Perhaps but since that doesn't happen very often where you went to school WILL get looked at.
Mistakes do happen in admissions offices of universities. It looks like this one was corrected fairly quickly. I was told by the option representative at Caltech that I was admitted by mistake about a week before I was to start graduate school. In hindsight it was obvious it was a mistake as I had been rejected by other less prestigious institutions.
They're not saying "computer error," but what are the other explanations?
There is no such thing as a computer error. Either it was user error or the computer was programmed improperly or the computer's hardware was designed/built improperly. ALL of those are human errors. Computers do exactly what they are told to do. Nothing more, nothing less. If the instructions are faulty then the computer will execute those faulty instructions faithfully.
yea
Wrong acceptance email happens every year (watch for them from March through April). Often at private K-12 schools, but also at colleges as well.
It has nothing to do with nefarious plots; and it doesn't take an especially stupid person.
Here's a few obvious reasons::
The programs are only run live once a year. An annual relearning exercise
"Accepted Applicants" and "All Applicants" reside in the same database. It's easy to export the wrong selection.
The staff changes from year to year
Often the admissions department is a small staff with minimal computer experience.
New software, and, especially, new office routines come along during the year.
Admissions departments worry about applicants; not aboutsoftware testing and deployment issues
Around this time, admissions people are under serious pressure from all sides to finish - pestered by parents, administration, and applicants.
Correct notification of applicants isn't considered mission-critical by admissions ("Hey - we goofed, so we'll just send out another email.")
"The program accepts fewer than nine percent of more than 1,200 applicants, which places the acceptance level at about a hundred, so they're bad at math, too."
Does this joke depend on some fact in TFA? (Which i am unable to read at work.) Are they actually supposed to be accepting some number that is significantly higher or lower than 100? As it is that statement stands out as a total non-sequitur.
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Also ironic is that the blowhard submitter thinks CMU's mistake is so funny, but can't even be bothered to get the name of the school right. It hasn't been "Carnegie-Mellon" for close to 20 years. It's "Carnegie Mellon" with no dash. (TFA has it correct.)
This one hits a bit close to home for me. I'm actually just finishing up my PhD in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Within a month, I should be Doctor Atog. Getting an acceptance letter like that can be life-changing. I've spent the past six years of my life in Pittsburgh because of being accepted to CMU. This has been an amazing place and I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to have been here. I've had doors opened because of being here, and I've been able to have some very rewarding experiences. I've learned a lot and I've certainly grown as a person. I still remember first getting that acceptance from CMU. I was overjoyed, and I knew that my future would be different because of that acceptance.
The students getting these false acceptance letters had several hours before there was a correction. Those hours are a lot of time. That is enough time to tell present employers that they are quitting. Enough to tell friends and family the good news. Time enough to tell other schools that they are retracting their applications. In other words, lots of time to make some fairly hefty life-altering decisions based on the news.
You'll have to hire some new professors but it will all work out.