About 200 students who applied early decision to George Washington University mistakenly received an email welcoming them to the Class of 2014.

Several hours later another email arrived from the Dean....

This afternoon, you received an e-mail from me titled 'Important GW Information'.  Unfortunately, this e-mail was sent to you in error.   We are truly sorry for this confusion regarding your application to GW.

 After a heavy snowstorm that caused delays in delivering acceptance packages, GWU admission officers elected to send e-mails to accepted students notifying them of their admission.  Among the recipients were approximately 200 students who were not admitted.

This isn’t the first time a university mistakenly informed rejected applicants that they had been accepted.

•  In 2003 Cornell University sent a message  "Greetings from Cornell, your future alma mater!" to nearly 550 rejected early-decision applicants. 
•  In 2009 (on April 1st) New York University mistakenly congratulated nearly 500 rejected applicants.
•  In 2008 Northwestern made a similar error congratulating 50 rejected graduate school candidates.
•  In 2009, University of California in San Diego sent an acceptance e-mails to ALL applicants -- more than 45,000 candidates -- more than 50% of whom had been rejected.