AOL, Harvard in ‘Spam’ Jam

Dozens of e-mail messages telling Harvard University applicants whether they had been admitted never arrived last month after America Online interpreted the messages as junk e-mail.

“This wasn’t exactly the instant response we intended,” William Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s dean of admissions and financial aid, told the Boston Globe.

After anthrax spores were mailed through the U.S. postal system, Harvard began using e-mail to inform applicants quickly of whether they had been rejected or accepted. E-mail was used to notify almost all of the 6,000 students who applied in the school’s early admission process.

But for reasons that even AOL could not explain, the service blocked between 75 and 100 of the e-mails in December because the servers flagged the messages as “spam,” or unwanted e-mails. The messages were bounced back to the university.

The problem proved to be more trouble for Harvard than it was for the students. Most just telephoned the admissions office. The university will continue to use the postal system to notify applicants.