The University of South Florida at St. Petersburg has been forced to revoke over 400 acceptance letters that were accidentally sent out to students whose applications were still under review.
According to Martin Tadlock, the chancellor at the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg, “human error” at the USF admissions office is what caused 680 applicants to receive an acceptance letter despite the fact that only 250 of them were actually admitted to the university.
Following the sending out of the first fault emails, the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg sent out a second, follow-up email that read: “There was an error in the system. Please disregard the previous email.”
Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times, Pinellas Park High School student Samantha Santos said that it felt like her “dreams were crushed.”
“Getting the acceptance email fulfilled my dreams. When I received the second email, it was like my dreams were crushed,” Santos said.
via Tampa Bay Times:
According to university spokeswoman Carrie O’Brion, a staff member wrongly thought a spreadsheet of applicants’ names had been sorted to include only those admitted. Instead, everyone on the list — those admitted and not — was included on the first email sent out.
Now, the university is in the process of contacting each of the recipients of the mistaken email to answer questions and “discuss possible pathways for admission” in the future, she said. Meanwhile, staff is working to ensure a glitch like this never happens again.
Tadlock noted that admissions at USF are rolling, meaning the affected students could still be accepted in the coming months. But that’s little comfort for many, like Izaiah Harris, 17, who have important, time-sensitive choices to make about the future as graduation draws closer.
USF spokeswoman Carri O’Brion said that at this time, the university was working to contact each applicant who received the erroneous acceptance letter to “discuss possible pathways” for future admission.
