ONE of the UK's leading universities has issued an apology after mistakenly sending an email to hundreds of prospective students telling them their application for a place had been successful.
St Andrews University sent the message to more than 700 students, when instead it had only been intended for a smaller group who had been invited to an open day.
The upbeat message began: "Congratulations on your offer of a place to study here at the University of St Andrews!"
However a follow-up email was issued less than 30 minutes later, containing an apology.
A spokesman said: "We're very sorry that we wrongly sent an email to some of our Scottish applicants which may have given the impression that we had made a decision on their applications.
"The email should have gone only to a very small group of people already in receipt of offers from us to invite them to attend visiting days in St Andrews."
A total of 760 prospective students received the email from the 3,400 Scottish and EU applicants who are awaiting an offer.
The university said that the email was sent by alphabetical order, so those with first names with the initials A to D would have been affected. It said the problem was "human error compounded by technology".
The statement added: "We moved as quickly as possible to contact all our Scottish applicants to explain our mistake and apologise."
It also said that staff were on hand to respond to phone calls and questions from applicants.
Students were quick to voice their dismay of the blunder on social media.
One tweeted: "When you get an email saying you've been accepted into St Andrews then 5 minutes later one saying no it was a technical error." Another added: "Just received an offer from St Andrews but it was an accident. So frustrating!"
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "This is a very unfortunate error by St Andrews and we hope that the university will do everything it can to prevent a recurrence."
The 600-year-old university is the oldest in Scotland and third oldest in the English-speaking world behind Oxford and Cambridge. Alumni include Kate and Wills, who met while studying in Fife.
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