@MomOutWest Yes!!! lol
@itsreallymia You’d THINK they could get someone to pull the names of applicants out of that database… eeesh.
I’m more willing to dismiss “I seen” and “He seen” in speech as sort-of contractions of I’ve seen and He’s seen. But written down, it looks awful. My daughter recently showed me an email that mentioned being “Admited”. The school wasn’t on our list anyway, thankfully. I hate to think of one of her top contenders falling from grace for a spelling or grammar error.
If the school has a CS major, or ANY major that isn’t purely “underwater basket weaving,” you have to wonder why they haven’t hired an UG to fix this. It’s bad enough when it’s essentially free to email unnecessarily, but when someone prints a pamphlet, puts it in an envelope, and mails it via snail mail, I see red. This would affect my willingness to pay tuition at the school.
@MomOutWest We should be able to use them as coupons if we return them. Take them to the bookstore and get holographic credit. lol
@IxnayBob I wonder if they even realize this is happening. I am sure that no one who has a pending application is going to contact Northeastern to complain that they are receiving too much mail from them. God forbid you say something negative about the hologram!
If a “computer error” can lead to Carnegie Mellon sending acceptance letters to hundreds of applicants by accident, I cant be too shocked by smaller errors by other schools.
White people should be free to use a local vernacular. Anyone should, as long as the listener is likely to understand it. 
I have to wonder that given how many schools use snail mail, there has to be something beneficial about physical copies, right? Perhaps some subconscious psychological factors that create an attachment?
@itsreallymia Srsly. I’m not about to complain about multiple holograms! 
My daughter received a pair of database disaster emails this year, but I forget which college they were from:
Dear Matthew,
We are writing to tell you about our honors program at…
Followed a couple days later by:
Dear Timothy,
We would like to apologize for the error which caused us to send out emails with the wrong names…
(And no, I did not name DD either Matthew or Timothy.)
Speaking of which, we got a nice little card in the mail from UCLA after D had been there for a couple months. It was basically congratulating us on D attending and was personally signed. The overall feel of the note was like something sent to a specific small group, but it didn’t actually say. Anyway the odd thing was that the person who signed the card didn’t include their title. I searched UCLA’s website and also googled for their name and was never able to identify who the person was.
We emailed one of DD’s top choice schools early on that the name from the PSAT was not the name she uses. she got a very nice personalized email acknowledgement and and an assurance that it was changed in their system. She now receives two of everything email and snail mail from the school.
S has gotten several recruiting emails and real letters for his sport from a coach at a top 20 LAC. Several of them mention him getting an Ivy League education. Not “equivalent to” or even “better than”, which are claims that this school could probably make with a straight face. It’s that good of a school. They just make repeated references to an “Ivy League education” at ___________[insert name of school who is very prestigious but definitely not in the Ivy League]. I suppose that for a number of prospective students it highlights to them that this is a tippy top caliber school. But for people like me who know what that means, it’s pretty off putting. S has eliminated them for other reasons, but this one really bothers me.
@anomander Maybe it was from a student? I know when my S was accepted to a university he was sent a handwritten note from a student already attending. It was a congratulatory note. It was a nice touch. We were impressed.
@pkchamp89 That’s certainly possible. Although in keeping with this thread, one of the first rules of business communications is identifying yourself, so leaving us in the dark about who sent the card was a strange oversight.
DS got a nice note from his AO referring to part of his application essay and signed. We were such rubes at the time, having just fallen off the turnip truck, that we were impressed and thought that the essay must have been memorable. It is still a nice touch, but we haven’t met anyone who didn’t get a similar handwritten note :))
I agree! Any communication should definitely signed with a title. Basic etiquette.
@dadof4kids - wow!
Lots of stories here about getting duplicate mailings, but make sure the school really knows it is the same student.
My daughter has a double first name but prefers to be called by only the first first name, like Mary Ann and she prefers Mary. So the coach opened a file under ‘Mary’ and then when daughter actually applied, she used her whole name. We got two of everything, one to Mary and one to Mary Ann and didn’t think much of it. Then her merit scholarship was wrong and when I called it was because they had only a very old ACT score. Then her meal plan wasnt correct. Then some other issues at registration. Then they started losing things like her final h.s. transcripts. We had them sent three additional times and when it came time to register for the second semester they would let her because there was a hold on registration because of the missing high school transcripts. Finally I called and asked if there were two files. Yep. Two student numbers too.
I’m sure there are no other kids at her school with our last name.
One of my kids has acquired an extra name according to her university. She is known as first first middle last. She says she’ll take care of it before she has an extra name on her diploma.
Not only does this sort of thing go on during the application process, but some schools seem to be uncoordinated all along the way. D attended University A for freshman year, then transferred to University B for the remainder. We are still getting email from University A as if she is STILL a student (or now an alumnus). In fact, we received a congratulatory email when she graduated (from somewhere else). It seemed like the makings of a disaster - what if the student were not still alive and they are emailing a congratulations to the grieving parents?