Less than two months into his senior year of high school, North Hills Senior High School student Nick Treser was ecstatic Sunday morning.
The Pittsburgh resident awoke to a notification on his MyPennState web page saying he had been accepted to Penn State University Park.
But then Treser checked the website Monday only to see the acceptance message removed.
“My day was demolished,” Treser said.
Because of a computer error, the Penn State Undergraduate Admissions Office website notified more than 700 prospective students that they had been accepted to the university.
The Penn State Undergraduate Admissions Office removed the messages from MyPennState after applicants questioned the results, Penn State spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz said.
But messaged applicants should not take the removals from the website as bad news: Mountz said the acceptances would be honored despite the mistake.
Applications to Penn State University Park as a first choice and those requesting admission at a Commonwealth Campus as a first choice will be honored for students who received notices, and would have been accepted regardless, Mountz said.
Acceptance notifications for students who selected University Park as a first choice but were referred to a Commonwealth Campus will not be honored. Instead, these applicants may or may not be accepted to University Park in the coming months. If they are not, admission will be given to a Commonwealth Campus, Mountz said.
She stressed that computers do not decide admissions results — applications must be organized according to admissions criteria to streamline the process.
“Believe it or not, people go through all these applications individually,” Mountz said.
The acceptance notifications were sent when the admissions office computer systems began a process that should not start until Nov. 1. The computers organize applicant data according to major, standardized test scores and other criteria, Mountz said.
The admissions office will get in contact with applicants who received the message as soon as possible, Mountz said.
Since his acceptance has been confirmed, Treser said he can breathe a sigh of relief.
