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Email to MIT applicants mistakenly tells them they were admitted

BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) – Some MIT applicants were mistakenly told that they were admitted to the school via email.

MIT uses MailChimp to send emails to prospective and admitted students. The program requires that the email have a footer that states the reason for the communication. In a recent email to students, the footer said, "You are on this list because you are admitted to MIT!"

According to the school, they have a list in MailChimp for admitted students and a list for prospective students. When trying to combine the lists, an "undocumented" side-effect occurred. When combining the lists, one footer was imported to both.

"In other words, it replaced one line, in small print, at the bottom of the email, after we had already (extensively) drafted, reviewed, and approved the text of the email itself. We never even knew," the MIT Press Office said in a release.