University apologises for sending acceptance emails to nearly 800 prospective students in error

The University congratulated 760 out of 3400 Scottish and EU applicants on their acceptance to St Andrews in an email sent in error late last week.

The email went on to invite the prospective students to attend a visiting day at St Andrews.

The prospective students were informed less than half an hour later that the e-mail was sent in error, causing a frenzy on Twitter from confused, angry and bemused applicants.

A University spokesperson has said that the email was the result of “human error compounded by technology” and “the team involved is devastated and the University is extremely sorry for the confusion and disappointment it has caused some applicants.”

Luckily for the University, it is believed that the email was only sent to the surnames A-D, limiting the damage somewhat.

The University issued a statement stating “We’re very sorry that we wrongly sent an email to some of our Scottish applicants which may have given the impression that we had made a decision on their applications.”

“The email should have gone only to a very small group of people already in receipt of offers from us to invite them to attend visiting days in St Andrews.”

The university also informed the applicants that all information on their applications should be released through UCAS.

This is not the first time the University has been under fire for this sort of mistake.

In 2012, the University released the results of the Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers several days early through the iSaint portal.

This was due to an error when the results were uploaded from UCAS to the University computers, according to the University.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.