Students' fury at ‘You’ve been accepted’ email from Ucas

The university admissions service had to apologise today after anxious students across the country received a misleading spam email telling them "you have been accepted".

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service made a humiliating apology to teenagers nervously waiting for their A-level results who discovered the email was just an offer for a discounted Hewlett-Packard laptop computer.

Many students assumed the email was the official confirmation that they had achieved the grades they needed and been accepted by a university.

Online message boards and a Facebook group set up by furious university hopefuls were today filled with messages attacking Ucas for sending the misleading email.

Raheem Kassam, spokesman for the Student Rights organisation, described the decision to send the email just hours before students were due to get their A-level results as "utterly callous". He said: "Some people are absolutely fuming. These people are waiting to find out what's happening with their future. It's an extremely important time for them and to receive an email like this from Ucas is completely wrong. To send something like that the day before A-level results is utterly callous. Heads will roll. It was a huge error of judgment."

Students today left angry posts on online message boards complaining about the emails. One message said: "Got that email on my phone on the way back from work. My phone only displays the first four words in the email subject. Needless to say I was cursing Ucas."

Another said: "My heart stopped when I saw the email. It's totally wrong of them to do that to me."

A Ucas spokesman said: "We understand and apologise for the confusion this has caused to some applicants, and we are looking at reviewing our quality filters to avoid this type of situation in future."

Hewlett-Packard was unavailable for comment.