University in Michigan accidentally tells 5,500 students they received nearly full scholarships

Oakland University in Michigan mistakenly told 5,500 incoming students they’d receive nearly full scholarships, chalking up the mishap to “human error,” officials at the school said Monday.

The email gaffe for the school just outside of Detroit, which happened on Jan. 4 and was corrected within hours, came after Central Michigan University recently admitted to a similar error involving 58 students — but CMU is still awarding those mistaken scholarships.

“I don’t think it would be” feasible to grant those 5,500 full scholarships, said Oakland University spokesman Brian Bierley, who declined comment on CMU’s decision to honor those 58 grants. “We’re just trying to work through Oakland’s situation.”

The 5,500 Oakland students were mistakenly told they were receiving the Platinum Presidential Scholar Award, the school’s highest grant which is good for $12,000 a year and covers nearly all of a freshman or sophomore’s $13,934 annual tuition.

Those 5,500 had applied for university scholarships and had been granted lesser awards, typically between $1,000 to $5,000, and those will still be granted, according to Bierley.

“Unfortunately, due to a human error, the email was inadvertently sent to you and others who had not received Presidential Scholar awards,” according to a joint statement by Oakland University Undergraduate Admissions Director Shane Lewis and VP for Enrollment Management Dawn M. Aubry. “Please know we take this unfortunate mistake very seriously and would like to sincerely apologize.”

The mishap, coupled with CMU’s move to honor its mistaken scholarships, left a bad taste in the mouth of parent Gwen Poindexter, whose son Carnell Poindexter, a senior at West Bloomfield High School in Michigan, received the errant Oakland email.

“It’s disheartening. CMU is willing to own their mistake and not just own it, but right it. OU’s like, ‘Oh yeah we made a mistake, deal with it,'” Gwen Poindexter told NBC News on Monday. “It has not soured Carnell (on Oakland University), but it has soured me.”

The school said it’s sympathetic to the “stressful” times faced by students and families seeking to make ends meet for higher education.

“We know the college application process is an extremely stressful time and we are sorry for the added confusion and disappointment this email has caused,” Lewis and Aubry said. “While we know that this message will not make up for our mistake, we wanted to share our deep regret that this error occurred, and our deep compassion toward all those affected.”

Matteo Moschella and Polly DeFrank contributed.