CMU Accidentally Sends Out 800 Acceptance Letters To CS Program

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/errors-made-notifying-csd-masters-program-applicants

by misiti3780 • 11 years ago

89 50 11 years ago

cs.cmu.edu

jrockway• 11 years ago

At least it wasn't for a software testing-focused master's degree.

forgotX2• 11 years ago

I thought the discipline was ironic too, but it was probably a secretary with a massive spreadsheet that messed up a formula or a mail merge.

mad442• 11 years ago

Once in our CS department (not CMU), we had given PhD acceptance to a wrong student (call him Student2) since he carried the same name+surname with the candidate we intended to admit (call him Student1).

Instead of rescinding the acceptance, we let Student2 join. Of course we also admitted Student1 to the department as well.

It turned out that Student2 (the candidate we admitted by mistake) performed much better than Student1. :-)

Regehr notes a similar observation. http://blog.regehr.org/archives/147

CamperBob2• 11 years ago

Did Student2 know he was given a pass due to the mistake?

mad442• 11 years ago

No, as far as I know. Only some faculty knew, until it was divulged at a graduate review meeting.

a3_nm• 11 years ago

This reminds me of the novel _Small World_ where the main character is a young researcher who got a position thanks to a mistake like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_World:_An_Academic_Roman...

In that story, however, Student1 didn't get the position.

acjohnson55• 11 years ago

Also reminds me of the movie Orange County, where main character Shaun Brumder does not get admitted to Stanford because they mistakenly admit classmate and stoner Shane Brainard instead. Hilarity ensues.

craigyk• 11 years ago

I remember when I was applying to graduate schools I was waiting to go to my last (fourth) recruitment interview, but I was pretty sure I wanted to go to the third school I had visited. Well I wasn't back for more than a day from the last recruitment trip when I called up that third school to ask them when I should show up and what paperwork I needed to fill out... it wasn't until about two years later that I realized I couldn't remember receiving an official acceptance letter or phone call from them...

Blackthorn• 11 years ago

To some of you reading this who haven't been to graduate school, this mistake is not as large as you might think. A lot of graduate schools have the policy of overadmitting and then pruning out during the oral exam (which usually 1-2 years into the program). I do not know if CMU is one of those schools (I attended one which did not have this policy; also, this policy can vary by department within the same school).

chavesn• 11 years ago

As an aside -- I have always found this type of sentence formulation, common with software engineers, so mystifying. It would be just as easy to understand without the sentence variables -- it doesn't add clarity but it does add length.

The alternative:

Once in our CS department (not CMU), we had given PhD acceptance to a wrong student, since he carried the same name+surname with the candidate we intended to admit.
Instead of rescinding the acceptance, we let both join. It turned out that the candidate we admitted by mistake performed much better than the other. :-)

shrig94• 11 years ago

In support of the variables, the comments seem to leverage Student1 and Student2 to describe the students the commenters are referring too, which is a lot easier than having to reexplain who you're referring to. (edit: DRY principle)

kszx• 11 years ago

My personal impression:

Formulation 1 (with variables, short and concise sentences): easy to understand.

Formulation 2 (without variables, long sentence): difficult to understand.

==> I prefer Formulation 1.

jacquesm• 11 years ago

It's a style you also see quite frequently in legal documents where you first introduce the parties, give them a shorthand name and then use that name consistently throughout the document. I personally prefer that style over endless repetition of a description (with possible inconsistencies between the repetitions).

qnaal• 11 years ago

One doesn't always know whether the structure of the prose they are about to produce will permit discernment of its subjects by context and description alone. That is to say, in informal communications, an intuitive notation such as "[class][index]" can easily map between an abstract thought and its textual representation, without a critical re-reading on the part of the author to ensure the subjects are properly differentiated, potentially followed by subtle sentence refactoring.

stfu• 11 years ago

Wasn't there once some sort of experiment of admitting a random sample from a college application pool? Couldn't find it on the spot, but I think it had some similar results to the PhD admission experience. It also does make sense from a armchair psychologist standpoint: The one being admitted on weak grounds will probably put in a lot more effort to keep up with the class/competitors than the one having always some other, similar options to fall back on.

xfr• 11 years ago

I can't imagine what those applicants are going through.

dorfsmay• 11 years ago

Both sad and ironic!

Aren't those emails somehow legally binding?

psychometry• 11 years ago

No, you usually need an offer on letterhead from the dean of the graduate school (or similar).

Alex3917• 11 years ago

If the email comes from a school employee then that may be enough to make it legally binding. But even if it isn't, if you threaten to sue the school will almost always let you in. This sort of thing happens all the time, e.g. from coaches who tell athletes they are accepted before the admissions committee officially makes a decision, and the reason you never hear about lawsuits is because the schools almost always let the candidates in if they complain in order to prevent bad publicity.

srinivasupadhya• 11 years ago

A third degree friend of mine resigned from her job as soon as she received acceptance mail. She received rejection mail in the morning & was devasted. As depressing as it could get.

TylerE• 11 years ago

Might want to consult with a lawyer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

Estoppel occurs when a party "reasonably relies on the promise of another party, and because of the reliance is injured or damaged"

SilasX• 11 years ago

I thought that was just called, er, detrimental reliance?

hindsightbias• 11 years ago

The first thing I'd do after being accepted for a Fall 2015 Masters program would be to quite my job.

mataug• 11 years ago

This scary, I got my admit to UW last week. I just hope they don't rescind it.

whitewhim• 11 years ago

for grad school, or undergrad? Either way congrats! I've spoken with a lot of the CS students and they're super bright.

timothya2• 11 years ago

Note that "UW" is a very overloaded term:

- University of Washington

- University of Waterloo

- University of Wisconsin

- University of Wyoming

etc.

loser777• 11 years ago

Was it the PhD program? I know they usually notify people who were accepted in a phone call, so this kind of mistake is less likely to happen :).

pnathan2• 11 years ago

Oh. My. That's going to be a mess. Some people will have quit their jobs, turned in notice, etc. CMU might want to be prepared to reaccept some of those people.

therobot24• 11 years ago

wasn't the error corrected quickly though?

pnathan2• 11 years ago

I am sure that someone got the email, yelled loudly, and then wrote their "I quit" email to their fine employer.

Or perhaps turned down other graduate school offers...

thedudemabry• 11 years ago

My response exactly.

simon_• 11 years ago

Ugh, this apology seems lamely antiseptic. "We are reviewing our notification procedures" is not the level of self-abasement I would expect after a mistake this serious.

javert• 11 years ago

It's CMU. I wouldn't expect them to admit a mistake at all, so this is pretty good.

misiti3780• 11 years ago

why is that ?

bradleypowers• 11 years ago

Good ol' Robert'); DROP TABLE Rejects;--

jsonau• 11 years ago

I will put money that they use the incorrect email template (acceptance vs reject)

tdaltonm• 11 years ago

Ah, CMU.. it's certainly no Stanford.

CMU Accidentally Sends Out 800 Acceptance Letters To CS Program

Related Stories