Nearly 800 Carnegie Mellon computer science applicants experienced most students’ worst nightmare: receiving an acceptance letter, then promptly receiving a follow-up explaining that they didn’t actually get in.
Prospective graduate students found a hyped-up email in their inbox Tuesday afternoon that read, “You are one of the select few, less than 9 percent of the more than 1,200 applicants, that we are inviting … Welcome to Carnegie Mellon!” Seven hours their initial excitement was banished when the following email from the university read, “CORRECTION OF PRIOR EMAIL / REVOCATION OF OFFER OF ADMISSION TO MS IN CS PROGRAM.”
The school’s spokesperson Kenneth Walters offered apologies and blamed the unfortunate incident on a computer glitch. Apparently such problems are not rare, but they suck nonetheless.
Applicant Ben Leibowitz, who experienced the mistake firsthand, told the Associated Press,”It was brutal. I didn’t get much sleep last night…Now I have to clean up the mess. I’m calling all my relatives, I’m going, ‘I’m sorry it’s not happening.”
