Undergraduates Receive Erroneous Emails Ahead of Visitas

With less than a week until Visitas — Harvard’s two-day admitted students event — the College sent two erroneous emails on Tuesday to college students who volunteered to host admitted students.

Undergraduates who agreed to host admitted students, also known as prefrosh, received an email Tuesday afternoon from the Visitas Team reading “Annenberg is at max capacity.”

“It would be great if you could invite your admitted students to eat with you in your house dining hall. We hope you are enjoying the Visitas experience!” the email continued.

Hosts received a follow-up email 43 minutes later from the Visitas Team clarifying the previous email had been “sent in error.” The email went on to thank students for volunteering to host admitted students.

“Below you will find the name(s) of your admitted student(s), along with their arrival and departure dates and times (if available),” the second email read.

But the email did not include any such information.

“I was very confused about the emails,” Matthew J. Nock ’28, who will be hosting two prefrosh during Visitas, said. “I was not sure why I was getting them.”

“I did go on Sidechat and find out that everybody else was having the same problem, so it’s good to know I was not the only one,” Nock said.

Immediately following the first email’s delivery, students took their thoughts to the anonymous social media app Sidechat.

“The accidental visitas email had me concerned i forgot a child somewhere,” one post read, which garnered more than 240 upvotes.

“Alright who pressed the button just now, idek who my Pre-Frosh is yet,” read another post — amassing more than 180 upvotes.

According to later emails sent by the Visitas Team to hosts, the team was “experiencing technical difficulties with our email system” and the initial erroneous email was from last year’s Visitas.

After receiving the glitched emails, Ella V. Ricketts ’28 “immediately sent out an email” to inquire about her Visitas match.

“I got a set response, like 30 minutes later, basically saying that, ‘that was a mistake,’ that ‘they’re having some technical difficulties and they’ll be in contact shortly,’” Ricketts said.

More than seven hours after the first email was dispatched, hosts received the contact information and travel details for their partnered admitted students.

Despite the errors with the emails, Ricketts said she “wasn’t too worried about it.”

“I knew that eventually I would get the names of my Visitas kids,” Ricketts added.

Nock, who was assigned to host an international student, said that he wished Visitas pairings were released “a little bit earlier” in the week.

“It would have been nice planning stuff out, organizing a bit more, but right now it’s a little scattered,” Nock said.

“The cadence of communications this year is in line with previous years,” College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in response to a request for comment. “Visitas was much earlier in April last year so these updates were also shared earlier.”

Missy I. Prince ’28 said that the email errors made her “more antsy” to receive her Visitas match.

“But in the end, I think it wasn’t a huge deal,” Prince added. “It hasn’t had any actual effect other than just being impatient and wanting to know.”

—Staff writer Hiral M. Chavre can be reached at hiral.chavre@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @h_chavre.

—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.