Senior Elyse VanderWoude received a puzzling acceptance email from UC Davis on March 10. The first line read “Congratulations Regina.”

As it turns out, VanderWoude wasn’t the only senior to receive this confusing message; UC Davis mistakenly sent out other acceptance emails that were all addressed to Regina. She opened the email that apologized for the mistake without even knowing there was one.

“I didn’t know what they were talking about, so I went back and saw that they’d sent the one with Regina. Then they immediately sent one with my name,” VanderWoude said.

At first she thought this mix-up was an isolated incident.

“I thought I was the only person who it happened to … then I was talking to other people and they said it happened to them too,” VanderWoude explained.

Senior James Melkonian also received the erroneous email.

“The first [email] said I was in and that I was probably among a group of students who received an email with the wrong name. Then a few hours later I got the email saying ‘Congratulations Regina,’ and then I got another one saying ‘Congratulations James,’” Melkonian said.

Julia Zueck had an interesting take on the incident after conferring with senior Sean Cooke, two seniors who also received mistaken acceptance letters.

“I think Sean had an interesting way of putting it. He said, ‘when you send out those emails, there’s an option to say ‘name of sender’ or ‘name of receiver,’ and the person who sent the email clicked ‘name of sender’ and that’s why it says Regina.’ That’s his theory at least, and I think that makes sense,” Zueck said.

Despite the serious nature of college acceptance letters, VanderWoude managed to find the humor in the mistake.

“I just kind of laughed and told my mom, ‘Look what happened,’” she joked.

Overall, she maintained a good attitude about the blunder.

“I guess it didn’t affect my perception of the school, though I think they that they probably need to work on their communications,” VanderWoude said.