Thousands of past and current Northeastern University law school applicants received erroneous admission acceptance emails, the Boston school said.
The emails, which were sent to 205 current law school applicants because of a “technical error,” said they had been admitted into next year's class.
The law school “quickly sent a clarifying email explaining the error,” officials said, adding that “individual outreach” was underway for applicants with concerns.
The school said admissions decisions will not be finalized until later in the academic year.
The erroneous email was also sent to nearly 4,000 applicants who applied a year ago.
“While many of those applicants have already matriculated at Northeastern or another law school, they also received the clarification email,” the school said in a statement.
“The School of Law deeply regrets this unintended mistake and is taking steps to ensure that it will not happen in the future,” the school said.
Lakisha Papoutsakis, a single mother of four from Northborough, Massachusetts, was one of the affected applicants.
She said she had been rejected twice by the school in the past two years. She had decided to give applying another shot and was overjoyed when she got the erroneous acceptance email.
“It was like going on a roller coaster. That’s exactly how it felt,” she told NBC Boston. “Last night, I get this email, and I’m, like, all excited. ‘Oh my God! I got in!’”
But six hours later, she got the follow-up email.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God! This is so amazing,’ and then it was like, ‘Oh no, sorry, April Fool’s Day,’” she said.
“How do you make such a big mistake and then you do nothing to try to rectify it?” Papoutsakis asked. “You don’t do anything except for ‘Oh, sorry’?”
