Education
Education

Georgia State University mistakenly sends acceptance message to 1,500 students

Officials with Georgia State University said 1,500 prospective students mistakenly received communication last week meant for accepted students, leading some to think they'd been admitted. Those students can still work toward admission. (John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com)

Credit: John Spink

Credit: John Spink

Officials with Georgia State University said 1,500 prospective students mistakenly received communication last week meant for accepted students, leading some to think they'd been admitted. Those students can still work toward admission. (John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com)
By
May 9, 2024

Officials with Georgia State University say 1,500 prospective students with incomplete applications received a communication last week intended for accepted students.

“The Admissions department sent a retraction communication,” GSU said in a statement Thursday. “We also have encouraged the students to finish their applications so they can be considered for admission.”

Georgia State officials didn’t say what led to the error.

Channel 2 Action News reported a California high school student who received the notice thought she’d been accepted to GSU. She was disappointed after receiving another message from the university correcting the mistake, Channel 2 reported. GSU said the student’s application is still being processed.

In 2018, GSU made a similar error when 1,330 graduate school applicants received messages leading them to believe they were accepted, after initially receiving notices saying they hadn’t been. At the time, the university said the employee who made the error was being retrained and that officials were reviewing the system it uses to notify applicants to avoid repeating mistakes.

About the Author

Martha Dalton is a journalist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, writing about K-12 education. She was previously a senior education reporter at WABE, Atlanta's NPR affiliate. Before that, she was a general assignment reporter at CNN Radio. Martha has worked in media for more than 20 years. She taught elementary school in a previous life.

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