The Ateneo De Manila University has apologized for what it described as a "tone deaf" statement posted on its official Twitter account.
Ateneo earned the ire of netizens Monday over its response to a tweet from Team AMDG welcoming incoming freshmen who recently passed Ateneo's admissions process.
In a now-deleted tweet, Ateneo said: "Speaking of the first order of business, accepted applicants need to gather their documents for confirmation, watch out for their school's Open House, and assess their other options well."
The phrase that many Twitter users did not like was Ateneo saying "we're not for everyone."
Before it was deleted, the tweet was quoted over a thousand times, with netizens pointing out its elitist tone.
Ateneo apologized for the tweet, saying that they "framed and phrased this poorly and regret ending with such a tone deaf sentence."
It added that the intent of the tweet was "to invite people to get to know us a little better and consider their own context and plans instead of automatically jumping in."
"The casual callousness of our reply reflects, quite badly, on how we've let generations of elitism and privilege get to our heads. We hear you and we thank you for calling us out. We can only promise that we are working to do better and be better," Ateneo also said in the deleted tweet.
Because of the pandemic, Ateneo last year scrapped its annual college admissions test in favor of a criteria-based admissions process which considered each applicant's academic performance during their high school years.
On Monday, Ateneo said the results of their admissions process had been released.
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