University of Denver-the MOST IRRESPONSIBLE COLLEGE EVER

Question

University of Denver-the MOST IRRESPONSIBLE COLLEGE EVER Well, before I get started, I gotta say that I think this topic may be a little bit exaggerate, but this is the exact feeling that I currently have about this college. The University of Denver is absolutely the most irresponsible and ridiculous college that I have ever seen in my whole life yet, and it all starts with an email that I received last Saturday morning at around 3am. Last Friday evening, aka, may 3rd 2013, I received an email from University of Oklahoma, and they rejected my application to their college. I was feeling fine at that moment, cause I was still having the AD to both DU and UT Dallas. But since it was kinda late at night in China, I went to sleep. But when I woke up the next morning, I received an email from DU which says that since I have not paid the deposit yet, and my current program, MAcc, is “too popular”, there is no seats available, and I have to either change my major to MBA and MBA related programs, or to delay my enrollment to spring 2014. ARE U SERIOUS?! You told me that the deadline to make the deposit is JUNE 1ST, why would you send me such email with absolute no previous notifications?! Honestly speaking, I was totally speechless at that particular moment, and didn’t really know how to response or what to say. I couldn’t even remember how I spent that day, but when I came home late at night, I noticed my phone was ringing the whole time, I checked and found that somebody just started a group on QQ(a chatting software that we use in China). I checked the group, and I found that there were TEN people (there are now 17, only 2 got their problems solved, I’ll say it later). And we were talking about how to response and what to do next. Cause you know, it’s May, and we really don’t have many options left, someone rejected other colleges, someone just got rejected (like me

), Denver was almost our last chance. Granted speaking, most of us took Denver as our rebounds, but that’s because they set the deadline to June 1st. Take me for example, I was planned to go for the MAcc program, which is pretty good at Denver, but now they force me to MBA, and honestly speaking, the MBA program at Denver is pretty average, you cannot even find their rank on USNEWS, and their ratings on the USNEWS are pretty low. So we found that we couldn’t accept their offer, so we wrote an email together, explained our current situations separately (some bought the tickets, some have no options left, some singed an apartment etc.), and we sent the email to both the Dean at DCB and the president at DU, but we are not getting any responding yet. So the next day, I drafted an email. I gotta tell ya it’s my first time being so serious about something and this is what I wrote, Dear ms. Riordan, and mr. President, Hi ms. Riordan, the Dean at Daniels College of Business, and mr. Coombe, the president at University of Denver. We believe that you have already received our previous email regarding our applications, and here we are writing you another email briefing about our current situations and how we want this problem to be solved. As we mentioned in our previous email, we cannot accept this decision made by the enrollment department of Daniels College of Business, and we simply want our programs back. We firmly believe that this decision is totally irresponsible and here are some questions we have about this decision: 1. The deadline to response is June 1st, but why you moved it earlier for almost a whole month without any previous notifications. 2. As Victoria Chen mentioned, our current programs are "too popular", which is also the reason why you made the decision. But why we, the applicants, received absolute nothing before that email, warning us about the seat situation? As far as we know, there are around 14 people in our group now who are facing this situation. But how to explain this phenomenon: some of us who did not pay the money by May 4th, and they received that email last Friday, which is "reasonable"; some of us who paid the money before May 4th, but they still received that email last Friday, which is unreasonable; and there are even some of us who's not paying the money yet received nothing last Friday, however, they were afraid that they were having the same situation like us, so they did not pay the money during the weekends, and they got that email today. 4. Let us assume that even if we paid the money way before May 4th, and have our seats saved, can you guarantee that our programs will not be taken away due to the same or different excuses? 5. As mentioned in Victoria Chen's email, most of the seats now available are the MBA or MBA related programs. Why does MBA program have so many free seats, is it because many MBA students changed their major, or is it simply because there are not enough people apply for the MBA program? 6. To most of us, the University of Denver is the last university that we have now on hand, we did not response soon enough because you gave us a long period of time to consider, and we truly appreciate that. Before we received that email, some of us got rejected by their dream colleges, some of us rejected other schools in order to come to Denver. We believe that being a decent college, you should be responsible and issue a reasonable number of admissions that you can take instead of asking your applicants to face the consequence of issuing too many admissions. 7. As we mentioned, some of us paid the money before last Friday and still received the email; some of us did not pay the money before that, but they paid it immediately after that email; and some of us are not paying the money yet, but they are just simply afraid that you will take the money away and force them to change the major. There is no doubt that we all want our programs back, but we just cannot pay the money before we get and appropriate explanation. Once again, our wish is simple, we just want our programs back, and extra apology would be better. Also, we have heard that one of us who is currently studying at DU got her problem solved today, and we truly appreciate that. Finally, as we mentioned above, we simply want our programs back, and we hope that you can make the right decision. Thank you very much for your time and help Once again we sent this email to the dean and the president, and fortunately, they finally got an secretary responded this morning, and this is how they answered, Dear Daniels Accepted Students,Thank you for your collective email. Below are the responses to your questions: 1. As mentioned in our previous correspondence, this was an extremely difficult decision to close both the MAcc and MSF programs. We know that you all possess great qualifications and would be wonderful additions to the academic community, which is why your status as accepted students remains unchanged. The challenge for Daniels is that many more accepted students deposited this year compared to previous years and a large number of those deposits came in all at once (a trend that could not be foreseen, especially when the total number of applicants for this year is about the same). This is the reason why we are unable to add to the incoming MAcc and MSF classes and why a sudden email was distributed. 2. Please note that 2 students in your group were given exceptions specifically because one of them is already at DU and was accidentally included on the distribution list, while the other had her deposit submitted by May 2 before the email went out on May 3 (Denver time). Since it does take one business day for tuition deposits to show up on our system, the 2 nd student received the “program closed” email only because her information had not yet updated but was already in process. Unfortunately, all deposits that were made on May 3 rdor over the weekend would show up in our system as May 6 th; hence, these students would still be subject to the closure announcement. 3. We know the difficulty of this situation and extend our sincere apologies for this sudden news. We are also aware that many students have received their I-20s, since these are sent out to all accepted applicants who have provided their necessary financial documentation; however, for U.S. schools, it is the deposit that actually confirms a student’s seat in the program. Therefore, all accepted students who had deposited beforehand are guaranteed their spot. This would be the case as well for anyone who submits their deposit to defer their start date to Spring 2014 instead. Although we are unable to add to the incoming MAcc or MSF class, we would definitely like to work with you on other options, which is why suggestions such as the MBA program were proposed. The MBA is a larger program (doubles the size of the MSF or MAcc), which is why there are still some seats available. As such, we have outlined the following possibilities which may be of interest to you: a. Again, programs such as the full-time MBA do allow you to choose a concentration in Accountancy or Finance, so from a curriculum standpoint, you would still be able to take about 8 accountancy or finance classes versus the 12 in the MAcc or MSF; therefore, it’s not that much less compared to the actual program. Alternatively, if you were interested in pursuing a dual degree, you could switch your current Fall 2013 application to the MBA, and then decide later if you want to submit another application to add on the MAcc or MSF. Our overall policy for dual students is that both degrees must be achieved within 5 years. b. The backup option, as mentioned earlier, would be to defer your MAcc or MSF entry to Spring 2014 (March) and secure your seat with a deposit. We hope you will be able to take advantage of one of these other options. Please feel free to contact us with any other questions and let us know how you would like to proceed. Thank you again for reaching out to us. Regards, I am totally shocked and speechless after seeing this terrific reply. I mean, is this whole crap even legal?! BTW, about that two lucky kids: one is currently studying at DU (she paid the money on May 6th), the other paid her deposit before that dumb email. I am just wondering if there is anyone out here who’s not a Chinese also received this dumb email? Also, what would you do if you were me?

lb2015 · Answer

I think your heading just about sums it up--why would you want to go to a school that you felt this way about? From your account, it does sound like the school was extremely disorganized at best.

I know very little about accounting programs, but for what it's worth, I don't know if DU is the place I'd go if that's what I was interested in. Especially if I were an international student. Keep in mind that DU's business school is very regional. It's also not selective or prestigous (74% of applicant accepted? Only 40% with job offers at graduation? Ouch!). I say this with a lot of love as someone who went to school in Colorado and has close friends at the school currently.

Here are the circumstances under which I would ever consider attending DU for any type of business program:

A) I knew I wanted to spend my life in Colorado, and had a generous scholarship or sponsorship; or 
B) I was working in Denver full-time, needed an MBA to advance, and attended the part-time program

Sounds like this might have been a blessing in disguise for you and your friends...good luck!

TonyMontana896 · Answer

Wow that is absurd. I've never heard of a school pulling out the rug on admitted students like that. It's totally unethical and screws those moving forward with their plans to attend even if they are holding off on paying the deposit.

A buddy of mine is at U-Michigan Med School. They over-admitted for his year, and offered students the option to defer a year with the incentive of a partial scholarship for doing so. They didn't force anyone to do it, rather they contacted students in groups until they had enough people willing to defer. I know this because he was one of the ones who deferred.

I wish they would have done that at UD rather than selecting a certain demographic (Chinese) and barring them from the program. Not only is it unethical to offer admission and then renege, it's racist since they targeted those from China!

It really upsets me that the Dean didn't even bother to respond to you personally. You need to do what you can to get this story out there because this isn't right.

PaulLanzillotti · Answer

Hey DUISSB: I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, just my analysis of the situation as you have stated it. Additionally, I do not have access to the terms of the contract that you entered into with Denver - so I do not have all the facts, just your version of them. That being said - Google the term "unilateral contract" - oh snap, I just that for you. See this - https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictiona ... l+contract If this is indeed the type of contract that is being extended - with Denver being the offeror - as long as you pay your deposit on time (June 1), they are obligated to perform (that is, enroll you in the program.) Again, I don't know if this is the situation at all. Let's say it could be though - hypothetically speaking - someone could have suffered damages, ie. leaving a job, forgoing another acceptance, and in an exceptional case - in the US already and enrolled at Denver. The person who suffered the damages may have the basis for exploring legal options. Again, this is why lawyers are lawyers and I am not. Now I'm not saying the following happened at all either - again, I am speaking hypothetically - if you were running an admissions committee (excluding Denver for the purposes of this example) and you let in too may people from a specific country (let's say Azerbaijan) or region of the world, and you knew that they were thousands of miles away, could not show up, and possibly had no legal knowledge about contract law, you might (or might not) just consider them the low man on the totem pole (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... tem%20pole). In this case, you would just go back on your promise and break a contract because there would be no significant impact to the bottom line. (That is, the probability of one person in Azerbaijan hiring an American lawyer to explore further action against the program is nil. Now if there were more than one person affected, a few lawyers might be interested.) To lessen the possible blow, you would also offer another contract and hope that the students accepted that, thus denying acceptance of the prior contract and filling up an MBA program that doesn't have enough applicants. Now what would make this hypothetical scenario even crazier would be if our imaginary admissions committee knowingly accepted too many students knowing that they would just try and roll them over into another program that did not have enough applicants. It's like a car dealer that advertises a great price on only ONE specific shiny red sports car on the lot. Then when 500 buyers show up, they say that the shiny red sports car is sold out, but they can offer you a red minivan. That would be crazy. (https://www.publiccounsel.org/pages/?id=0003#Number 3) Well, I hope things work out for you. Who knows, after this experience you might even consider attending the University of Denver's law school, but then again maybe not. (https://www.law.du.edu/index.php/the-col ... anizations) On a completely separate topic, have you ever read the Denver student newspaper? It's actually a pretty good publication. https://duclarion.com/staff_directory/ Again, these are just my thoughts and not legal advice. Also, it is not a critique or criticism of anyone or anything specific because I don't have all the facts. It's an analysis based on a situation that may or may not be true. Respectfully, Paul Lanzillotti

MacFauz · Answer

My question is.. Even if they decide to take you back into the program you wanted to get into.. Do you really want to go to - as the title suggests - "the MOST IRRESPONSIBLE COLLEGE EVER"?

Admissionado · Answer

That is a very very good question.

Ducksworth · Answer

Absolutely. Check it out! It is a great newspaper. Plenty of alumni and donors also read it.

kasonhills · Answer

see if you can get a story written about this in the student newspaper. If it's a half decent paper they will publish a story on this. You really need to get this out there because it's totally unethical. 17 of you should be able to get stuff done even from China.

Billbo · Answer

The legal issue, here, is detrimental reliance. You can sue them for any expenses and foreseeable lost wages that resulted from this fiasco. Establishing causation may be a bit tricky, but you might be able to use their overstated employment statistics against them in that effort.

Cheers,
Bill Moran
Georgetown Law J.D. Candidate 2014

NOTE: As a law student, I am not at liberty to provide direct legal advice as this would constitute an unlicensed practice of law. Thus, obviously go through proper channels before proceeding with any action. However, as a fairly educated gentleman, I would say there might be something worth discussing with an attorney... at least in an email.

Billbo · Answer

Actually, under contract law, the offeror is the master of their own offer and can always rescind prior to acceptance. That said, there was "detrimental reliance,"(an equitable doctrine) here, because OP would have presumably paid the deposit ahead of time or would have applied to another school if they knew they were going to get shafted. Thus, it appears facially that they have a case.

Cheers,
Bill Moran
Georgetown Law J.D. Class of 2014

NOTE: I am still a law student and you cannot act on my advice -- it would constitute unlicensed practice of law. Thus, go see a real lawyer. BUT, from my not yet professional perspective, it looks like you have a nifty case.

dave785 · Answer

Don't sue... Remember that really really long "terms and conditions" you had to "read" and agree to when submitting? pretty sure that explicitly covers stuff like this.

It is very inappropriate but they are offering the chance to defer a semester and enter in the spring. I font think the wait should be a big deal, but then again, who ants to go to a school that does that?

Good luck with whatever you choose!

University of Denver-the MOST IRRESPONSIBLE COLLEGE EVER

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