DePaul College of Law Has Received Your Application

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Did you apply to DePaul College of Law? Ever? If you ever thought you wanted to attend DePaul — regardless of whether you decided to go somewhere else or are now a practicing attorney — the school has received your application!
Yesterday, hundreds of former DePaul applicants, many of whom are now out of school, received the following email:

We have received the electronic submission of your application for admission to DePaul University College of Law. We have requested your Law School Credential Assembly Service (LSDAS) report from the Law School Admission Council. Please note that we will not begin to review applications until mid-November. At that time, we will notify you if we have any questions or require any additional information to complete your application. At that time, we also will notify you by email when your application is complete and ready for review by our Admission Committee. Once your application is complete, you can expect to receive a decision from the Admission Committee within 2-3 weeks of the completion date.
Thank you for your application to DePaul University College of Law.

Some of the people who received this email were five years removed from sending out law school applications.
Obviously, a major glitch occurred at DePaul. But how did DePaul even have accurate email addresses for so many students that never went to the school? Seriously, just how long does DePaul keep your personal information?
The school responds after the jump.


Michael Burns, Associate Dean & Director of Admission at DePaul College of Law, told Above the Law what went wrong with the system:

There appears to be a glitch in the LSAC application processing system that we use, ACES2. It appears that the query we ran picked up “archived” applicants from several years ago. We maintain general information in our archives about applicants from prior years. We have contacted the Law School Admission Council and they have assured us that their programmers are working to correct the problem. We apologize to any past applicants who received this message in error.

Okay, glitches happen. No big deal. But we imagine DePaul is not the only law school that keeps personal information about applicants who are rejected or never matriculate.
The question is, why? Why does DePaul, or any law school, need your email address several years after you applied?
Earlier: Snafu at UNC Law Raises Hopes, Then Dashes Them

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