DETROIT — Oakland University mistakenly told roughly 5,500 prospective students that they had earned nearly full-tuition scholarships at the beginning of the month, school officials admitted, an error that is upsetting many families even more after a similar problem at Central Michigan University ended with a different outcome.
Oakland sent out emails to prospective students on Jan. 4, spokesman Brian Bierley told The Detroit News, informing them that "they were entitled to receive Oakland University’s Platinum Presidential Scholar Award, our highest award."
The scholarship is worth $12,000 a year, which covers most annual tuition costs at the school. To qualify, a student must have at least a 3.9 GPA and earn at least 1450 on the SAT or a 33 or higher on the ACT.
The total bill for such an offer over four years would cost the university $264 million. In comparison, last year, Oakland offered 223 Platinum Presidential Scholar Awards, or about $10.7 million for that specific award. Bierley said 47 of those students enrolled in the fall.
"Unfortunately, the students who received the message do not meet the eligibility requirements for this award, but have qualified for varying levels of OU scholarship awards," Bierley said. The emails went to everyone who had earned a scholarship not at the presidential level but who had not accepted their awards. Bierley said they were sent out "due to human error" from an OU staff member.
Oakland officials corrected the error "within two hours" and issued an additional apology email on Jan. 5, according to the university. No one was fired or lost their job because of the error, Bierley said, but school officials have "thoroughly reviewed the process that led to the error and have implemented corrective improvements to the process."
In emails to students sent apologizing for the error that day, Shane Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions, and Dawn M. Aubry, vice president of enrollment management, wrote the school had "examined our email data extraction procedures to ensure that this doesn't happen again."
"We feel very badly that you received this incorrect communication, and we hope you will still consider attending Oakland University," the email continued.
News of this comes as Central Michigan ended up offering 58 prospective students full-tuition scholarships after making a similar mistake. CMU's message went out "inadvertently" when university staffers were "testing a new messaging technology over the weekend," according to school officials. The Mount Pleasant university later disclosed its executive director of admissions is no longer working at the school after the mistake.
Central Michigan's mistake, in comparison, could cost about $2.96 million.
Oakland University, however, has not changed scholarship offers for its affected applicants. But Bierley said the university is encouraging students to submit updated grades or standardized test scores for additional scholarship consideration.
Many families just shrugged off the Oakland University mistake when it happened. But after watching how CMU handled its problem, some are now upset.
"College is so expensive, so this is a brutal mistake," said Amy Pero, whose 18-year-old daughter was one of the applicants who got the mistaken email from Oakland University. "They should consider honoring it in some form. It's not like we want to bankrupt the university, and accidents do happen, but this is a really unfortunate one."
For Jess VanDerMaas, whose 17-year-old daughter also got the accidental notification, it felt like a cruel joke on top of a rough few years for high schoolers navigating the pandemic.
He isn't certain how the mistake is shaping his daughter's college decision, but he said it was painful to watch her feel like a joke.
"We're not asking for money, inherently. My daughter is going to be successful regardless of what school she goes to," VanDerMaas said. "But these kids are already going against this major uphill challenge.
"These administrators are making all this money, millions of dollars, and they're kicking these kids when they haven't even gotten to step out on the street."
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