SAN DIEGO, California-
The day a high school student gets accepted to a prestigious college is likely the biggest day in the entire life of that young person. I remember waiting anxiously for my acceptance letter to arrive from my Alma Mater. Although, when I was waiting to get accepted I was waiting for a snail-mail letter (this was a few years ago;). Nowadays, it’s much easier and far cheaper for schools to send out that desired letter via email.
So imagine the sure delight 46,377 ‘to-be’ UC San Diego students felt when they received that anticipated letter in their inbox. I’m sure the text messages and phone calls that followed went something like this…….“Yeah Baby, I Got Accepted to UC San Diego!!!” And who knows how much money and time was spent by proud parents and family members on gifts and dinner tabs right after the huge announcement. After all, getting into such a well respected university is no simple task, and not everyone gets in.
Houston, we have a problem. And it’s a BIG one. The 46,377 acceptance letters sent out actually went out to EVERYONE who had applied to UCSD. In reality, only 17,488 of those receiving acceptance letters were actually accepted to the university. The other 28,889 were supposed to have received rejection letters. Oh, I’m sure that went over really well. I guess I could say I would understand how that could accidentally happen to 10 to 20 applicants, ‘accidentally’. But screwing up that bad and breaking the hearts of nearly 29,000 young adults? That’s a little much.
There was no saying whether it was human error or computer error that caused the problem. But I would argue that if it WAS written off as computer error, it’s the same as human error. After all, computers don’t make other computers (at least not yet), humans make computers and the programs that run on them. So UCSD administration, ‘You have some ‘splainin to do!’
Do I smell a lawsuit?
The moral of the story: No matter how high tech your system is mistakes can and will happen. It’s always better to double check it.
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