Memorial University promises ‘checks and balances’ after 103 students get engineering acceptance letter in error

Approximately 100 high school graduates had their excitement dashed last weekend after mistakenly receiving admission acceptance emails from Memorial University’s Faculty of Engineering.

In a statement to CBC News, Memorial University said the emails were not official acceptance offers for the fall semester and only contained registration information for already accepted students.

However, according to a copy of the emails obtained by CBC, while it does have registration information, various wording around “acceptance” is indicated throughout.

Phrases such as “Congratulations on being accepted into the faculty,” “I hope you’ve accepted our offer,” and “Look forward to welcoming you to Memorial this fall” were all used in the first email received by students.

“I know that these students are very anxious at this time to get the results, that this was confusing and not the right thing,” said Dennis Peters, associate dean for MUN’s engineering faculty.

Peters said the emails were sent in error to a number of students whose acceptance remains pending.

“Certainly, we apologize to those students,” he said. “We are reviewing our processes to try and not let this kind of thing happen again.”

The emails sent were intended for the 350 students who have been accepted to the faculty and what occurred was a “human mistake,” he added.

Peters said Memorial is not reviewing this instance as an accountability issue for the individual who sent the emails or department. What is happening, said Peters, is a change in practices to ensure email lists are double-checked before being sent.

“Putting in the processes, checks and balances like that, is what we are going to do,” said Peters.

A second email came three hours after the first one and told students to disregard the portion of being congratulated on their acceptance.

Peters said it was intended as a quick reply in order for the department to rectify the mistake.

“We should have maybe reconsidered the communications a bit better and had a bit more formal response and a bit more thoughtful response of all those details, but that’s where it was,” he said.

Family members of impacted students posted to a Facebook group called MUN Parents to express their frustration.

A post uploaded on July 11 indicates parents saw the errors as “disheartening and disappointing” for those who thought they had been accepted into the faculty.

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Peters said just because students received that email, it doesn’t impact their admission as those decisions have not yet been made.

The admissions committee is waiting to receive high school transcripts from the Department of Education, which are expected to be released to them on July 17.

Once grades are received and reviewed is when students can expect to receive an acceptance or rejection notice. Peters said that’s likely to come late next week.

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