The email, which was sent at approximately half-past midnight, arrived in students’ inbox with the subject heading: “Graduation Ceremony Cancelled – No Award.”

It read, “You recently registered to attend a graduation ceremony this summer. However, we are now advised that you are not expected to complete your studies until later in the year, and therefore we presume that you may be eligible to to attend the next available graduation ceremony.”

A similar message was displayed when students logged into EUCLID, the University’s portal, with some reports stating that students’ degree progression statuses were also changed.

Initial comments, made by a student body representative, suggested that the email had been sent as a result of a hack. Patrick Garrat, the Vice President for Academic Affairs, wrote:

“No one’s graduation is being cancelled. The University’s IT system seems to have been hacked and temporarily changed students’ EUCLID statuses. The University are now looking into the cause. You’re all gonna graduate and your EUCLID status will not be changed”

System Failure

However, the University has since denied allegations that their system was compromised, instead blaming the error on a “system failure.” A follow-up e-mail sent out to students this morning read:

“Overnight you received an email from us saying that your graduation had been cancelled as you were not eligible to graduate. This email was issued in error so please ignore it. No graduations have been cancelled, and your final degree results will be released in line with the published schedule… any messages about cancelled graduations have now been removed from your EUCLID student portal.

“Our preliminary investigations suggest that these emails were issued as a result of an error. There was no breach of our systems and no student data was compromised. We are still looking into the root cause of this error. Meanwhile we would like to apologise unreservedly for any stress that this error has caused you at what we know is a stressful time.”

Another statement was released through the University of Edinburgh Facebook, saying that they are “urgently investigating” the issue.  

“We are aware that a number of final year students have received an email, apparently from the University, informing them that their graduation has been cancelled. Students should ignore this message – we can reassure you that no graduation ceremonies have been cancelled.

We apologise for the concern that this may have caused and are urgently investigating the source of this message. We will be emailing individual students directly to clarify this.”

Social Media Reaction

Social media posts made by affected students described the anxiety, and “sleepless nights,” suffered as a consequence of the email.

One student tweeted: “One of the worst mornings I’ve ever had, how can @EdinburghUni let this happen? Student careers depend on this, security must be paramount!”

Another said that they “went home from a night out crying,” because they thought they could not graduate.

The majority of the official Edinburgh University social accounts have all now issued a statement, which says the university is investigating the issue and reassuring students that no graduations have been cancelled.

We can reassure you that no graduations have been cancelled – please ignore a recent email that we are urgently investigating #EdinburghGrad

— Edinburgh University (@EdinburghUni) June 1, 2017