The director of admissions at Princeton University has been placed on administrative lead following accusations that he entered a secure Yale Web site to access the admissions status of 11 Yale applicants.
Princeton admission officers allegedly gained access to the private records on the Yale Web site by entering the birth date and social security numbers of students who applied to both schools. The Web site is intended for the personal use of applicants to notify them of their admission status.
Stephen LeMenager, associate dean and director of admission, characterized his actions simply as a way to check whether Yale's site was secure.
LeMenager, who has worked in the Princeton admissions office for almost 20 years, has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation, according to Princeton spokeswoman Marilyn Marks.
Princeton will not make any permanent decisions regarding LeManager's status until all the information from the investigation is collected, Marks said.
"The investigation is still going on," and it remains uncertain how long it will last, Marks added.
William F. Maderer, a partner in the Newark, N.J., law firm of Saiber, Schlessinger, Satz and Goldstein, arrived on Princeton's campus July 26 to conduct the independent investigation, according to a statement released by Princeton. The investigation seeks to determine exactly what happened, who was involved and why it occurred.
Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said Yale's main concern is to prevent further security breaches.
"It was unfortunate, and we strive to protect the privacy of our students and our applicants," Conroy said. "We hope that the outcome would be that it doesn't occur again."
Yale officials became aware of the security problem at an Ivy League deans' conference when a Princeton official revealed that some Princeton admissions officers gained access to the site, Conroy said.
"The University does plan to strengthen the security" of the Web site for next year, he added.
Conroy explained that the Web site could only be accessed for a two-week period and then was deactivated. Once the Web site was deactivated, students had to wait for official letters to arrive.
When accepted students viewed the Web site, they were greeted with virtual fireworks and a congratulatory message. Students who had been denied admission were greeted with a standard rejection letter. However, those students whose records previously had been accessed by Princeton employees were not able to view the decision screen when they logged in, making their admission status unclear.
Yale contacted all the students affected by the incident, but has not released any names to protect the privacy of those students, Conroy said.
The investigation already has determined that of 18 entries to the Yale site, only 14 were made from computers in the Princeton admissions office. Princeton admissions officers reportedly accessed some students' records several times.
The other four entries were made by students, including one student who had applied to both Yale and Princeton and checked his Yale admissions status while visiting Princeton. Princeton students who had siblings who had applied to Yale may have made the remaining three entries, according to Marks.
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