Hundreds of students readmitted to UC Irvine after admissions snafu

A last-minute decision will bring relief to hundreds of students who were initially admitted to the University of California, Irvine and then told they couldn’t attend.

In a statement sent to students Wednesday evening, the university undid a stringent admissions decision by readmitting 290 students whose acceptance letters were previously rescinded. The university received the nation’s third-highest number of applications for the 2017 fall semester, and underestimated the number of students who would register for classes.

“Effective immediately, all students who received provisional acceptances into UCI will be fully admitted, except those whose transcripts clearly indicate that they did not meet our academic standards” wrote UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman in a press release issued Wednesday and obtained first by VICE News.

The 290 students whose applications were reinstated Wednesday had failed to meet deadlines and other requirements for transcripts and test scores. Gillman said the university was, on a case-by-case basis, reviewing another 139 applications that were rescinded due to poor grades. UC Irvine retains the right to review an admitted student’s full year’s transcript, meaning some students could lose their enrollment for poor grades in the spring semester. Some students won back their admission on appeal before Wednesday’s announcement.

UC Irvine had gone back on hundreds of admissions over the summer for reasons ranging from a bad grade in the second semester of their senior years to missing the deadline to submit a transcript. The university was also reportedly responding to enrollment that exceeded expectations this fall.

One hundred and four thousand people applied to UC Irvine for the 2017 fall semester. Of the admitted students, 7,100 registered for fall classes — 850 more than the university anticipated.

“We’re trying to understand how we underestimated the number of students who planned to enroll this fall,” Gillman said. “We’re also trying to understand why we chose to notify students in an insensitive way or couldn’t answer their telephone calls adequately.

He added: “I intend to find out so this will never happen again.”

UC Irvine’s Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Thomas Parham said in a statement last week that the school it took a “harder line” on admitted students as a way to limit class size. The 499 admissions rescissions issued this summer caused a small furor in the UC Irvine community, and current students and alumni organized a petition of the university’s actions.