Receiving a college acceptance letter is usually a joyous occasion. But on a recent Thursday afternoon, the School of Visual Arts mistakenly sent a round of acceptance emails to people who never even applied.

According to the Associated Press, SVA emailed the wrong distribution list because of a database glitch. The letter congratulated the “elite group” of talented students on their admission to the college’s MFA program in visual narrative.

Many took to social media more perplexed than pleased when they received the letters.

The list must have been considerable, based on the screenshots that have emerged on social media over the past 24 hours.

Some email recipients were “feeling confused” at their acceptance letters. Courtesy of Maria Koblyakova.

Shortly after the initial emails, SVA’s director of admissions Yoi Tanaka Gayler sent a “Please Disregard” message, explaining the glitch. Luckily, there’s no harm done to people like undergraduate Maria Koblyakova, who received the email but is currently secure in her sophomore year at New York University.

However, Gayler’s email did include a mortifying statement: “If you have applied to the MFA Visual Narrative Program, you will be contacted separately about your application.” To those who were scheduled to receive a rejection letter from the program, it would be a cruel, cruel joke to have accidentally received this false hope.

A screenshot of the corrective email, sent shortly after the glitch. Courtesy of Maria Koblyakova.

SVA’s MFA in visual narrative program is a two-year course that teaches students to hone their storytelling skills in various formats, from children’s books and graphic novels, to eBooks, interactive websites, and social media platforms. We doubt the majority of the recipients are taking visual narrative classes anytime soon, but hey, at least they’ve gained a story to tell.

artnet News reached out to SVA spokesman Jeffrey Perkin but did not receive an immediate response.