--- title: Columbia University Accidentally Accepted Over 200 Students description: The Manhattan Ivy League school apologized and revoked the acceptances, which were to a Master's program in public health. canonical: https://time.com/4675446/columbia-accidental-acceptance/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-17T21:18:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:34.626Z og:title: Columbia University Just Accidentally Accepted 277 Students og:description: They were applicants to a Master's program in public health. og:url: https://time.com/4675446/columbia-accidental-acceptance/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Columbia University Just Accidentally Accepted 277 Students twitter:description: They were applicants to a Master's program in public health. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Columbia University Apologizes After Accidentally Accepting a Few Hundred Students > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=165c1c03-57b6-457f-93c1-016f3761ebfc&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Right Way to Think About College Scholarships [Watch (HLS stream): The Right Way to Think About College Scholarships](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3k0T8F6b.m3u8) (1:51)  _Published 2016-11-01. MONEY VIDEO_  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Feb 17, 2017 9:18 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Feb 17, 2017 9:18 PM UTC It’s been a rough week for the 277 prospective Columbia University students who thought they had been accepted at the Manhattan Ivy League institution—only to discover [it was all a mistake](https://www.yahoo.com/news/columbia-university-accidentally-sends-acceptance-notices-173741895.html). The admissions office had erroneously sent out the acceptances, and then revoked them in a follow-up email a little more than an hour later, leaving some pretty heartbroken students in their wake [as the _New York Times_ reports.](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/nyregion/columbia-grad-school-acceptance-letters.html) The college in question was the School of Public Health’s Masters program. “We deeply apologize for this miscommunication,” [the second email read.](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/nyregion/columbia-grad-school-acceptance-letters.html) “We value the energy and enthusiasm that our applicants bring to the admissions process, and regret the stress and confusion caused by this mistake.” This is just the latest mishap in a long line of accidental acceptances, which have become [something of a time-honored tradition](http://time.com/3637980/college-admissions-mistakes-johnshopkins/) at colleges across the country. Columbia joins the likes of Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, UC Davis, Johns Hopkins, and more over the last few decades who have gotten kids’ hopes up only to ultimately dash their dreams. In 2009, UC San Diego mistakenly emailed a whopping 28,000 prospective students with good news that they’d been admitted. That good news, of course, was actually fake news. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I encourage students to think about scholarships like a part time job. This is one of the nest part time jobs you can get in high school. If you spend two hours filling out a scholarship application and you win 1000 bucks that's like making $ 500 an hour. That's better than any part time job you're gonna find in high school. One of the biggest mistakes is that students just don't think that they can win them. They get so nervous and scared that they don't even apply. Or they just kind of put a half- hearted effort into the scholarships they do apply for so that they don't feel bad if they get rejected. I just encourage students to put themselves out there. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be a straight- A student, star athlete, valedictorian to get scholarships. There's scholarships given away for So many different reasons, beyond just academic achievement in sports. So I encourage students to overcome that fear and just go for it. There's a ton of different ways to find scholarships. The best way to find it, the easiest way are scholarship databases. So they're these awesome databases that go through the Millions of scholarships available and they narrow them down to a targeted list that fits you. So you type in information like where you're from, what sports you're involved in, your interests for the future and they sort through them all and you get a really awesome list that just for you. So I encourage you to start with that, use a few different databases because each database will give you different results. So, do a few and compare the lists and make your game plan for which ones you're going to apply for. There's scholarships given away not only all throughout high school, but even into college. A lot of students get discouraged, and they think, I didn't apply for enough scholarships my senior year, I'm done, that's all. But that's not true. You can apply All throughout college, there's study abroad scholarships. There are all sorts of niche scholarships that you can really get involved in, so don't be discouraged no matter what point you're at, because they're given away at so many points in your journey. 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