Nine potential students who applied to Brigham Young University were mistakenly sent congratulatory acceptance letters despite not being admitted — and the school is now allowing them to enroll after the embarrassing blunder.
High school senior Owen Johansen, from Oakton, Virginia, was among the nine students who received an acceptance letter and said he was ecstatic and that his parents, both alumni of BYU, were “thrilled,” according to KSL.
However, as he began accepting the admission and searching for a roommate, the “Welcome to BYU” message in his online portal was replaced with a rejection notice.”
When Owen’s parents reached out to officials at the private Utah university, they were told the acceptance notification was a mistake.
“I was really mad,” Johansen told the outlet, adding that his anger then turned into sadness.
His mother, Talai Johansen, said the situation was made worse because the university apologized to her and her husband but had not reached out to her son personally.
Talai Johansen said the experience left her “completely heartbroken by this entire process,” and demanded that BYU not only honor her son’s acceptance, but also the other eight students.
After mounting backlash over the admissions mix-up, the university said Wednesday that all nine students will be allowed to enroll, according to KSL.
BYU’s director of admissions, Chad Johnson, issued a public apology after applicants were mistakenly given false hope despite having already been denied admission.
“We are truly sorry that an unfortunate error in our admissions decision notification system resulted in nine prospective students mistakenly receiving congratulatory messages of acceptance,” Johnson told KSL late last month.
Johnson said the school understands that “admissions decisions are highly anticipated, and we recognize this mistake caused confusion and disappointment,” adding the university had already expressed its “regret and sincere apologies” to the nine students.
He shared that the Provo-based university’s “admissions team is working to ensure this mistake does not occur in the future.”
The university said it has granted provisional admission to the nine students and that admissions officials are working with each of them to ensure they meet BYU’s academic standards.
However, Owen’s family said that BYU admissions officials said their son would need to earn at least a 3.0 GPA.
More than 14,000 incoming freshmen have applied to attend BYU.
BYU accepts 68.7 percent of freshman applicants, according to the university website. The average tuition cost is $6,688 each semester for undergraduate students who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and $3,344 for members.
This isn’t the first time the University has made a critical admissions error.
BYU’s College of Nursing mistakenly sent both acceptance and rejection letters to hundreds of prospective students in 2024, KSL reported.
The university blamed it on “an error in a new system.”