William & Mary Law School inadvertently sent acceptance emails to 410 applicants on Tuesday due to what officials described as a technical error. The mistake affected several applicants, including those on the law school’s waitlist, individuals whose applications were still under review, and, in a small number of cases, those who had been denied admission.
The school quickly recognized the error and sent follow-up emails within minutes to apologize for the mix-up. Issa DiSciullo, the associate dean for J.D. admissions and financial aid, acknowledged the emotional impact of the mistake and assured applicants that steps were being taken to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“We recognize the emotional impact of such an error, and we are taking immediate steps to prevent it from happening again,” DiSciullo stated on Thursday.
This error occurred during the peak of the law school admissions cycle, which typically spans from September to June. According to the Law School Admission Council, nearly 52,000 individuals have applied to ABA-accredited law schools so far this cycle, marking a nearly 21% increase from the same time last year. Thousands of aspiring lawyers are awaiting decisions on their applications.
William & Mary Law School is ranked 36th nationally by U.S. News & World Report out of 196 law schools. In 2024, it received 1,564 applications, accepted 504, and enrolled 158 new students, according to data from the American Bar Association.
The incident at William & Mary is not the first of its kind. In October 2022, Northeastern University School of Law mistakenly sent acceptance emails to 205 applicants, later correcting the error several hours after it occurred. In 2017, Touro University Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center accidentally sent acceptance emails to more than 17,000 people—only one of whom had actually applied. The following year, Southwestern Law School made a similar mistake, inviting individuals who had not applied to an event for admitted students.
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