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Stanford Reaches Decisions on MBA Applicants Who Breached Software: None Admitted

April 1, 2005

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—I want you to hear directly from me the disposition of the 41 cases of unauthorized access to the Apply Yourself accounts of Stanford MBA applicants. Simply stated, we reached each decision individually, according to the facts of each case. On March 31, 2005, we notified each of these 41 applicants of his/her admission decision. After careful consideration of each individual case, it turned out that we admitted none of the 41 to the MBA Program.

Given the implications for each applicant, we felt that a fair process was as important as a just outcome. We asked the applicants whose Apply Yourself accounts were accessed to contact us with an explanation. We reviewed each individual statement that was submitted to determine whether the applicant had undertaken the action, and if so, what was his/her intent. Not all of the candidates in question were otherwise competitive for admission. Of the competitive applicants, none of those who gained unauthorized access was able to explain his/her actions to our satisfaction. This was then a negative factor in our decision-making.

We consistently have expressed dismay at the actions of any individual who sought to gain unauthorized access. However, we did not rush to judgment given the limited information available to us initially. By carefully reviewing the file of each applicant involved in these incidents, we upheld the Business School's values while treating each applicant fairly. As an educational institution, we hope that the applicants involved in this incident might learn from their experience.

I hope you agree that the character of an individual or an institution is highlighted in challenging times. We endeavor at all times for Stanford's character to be one of integrity, fairness, accountability, and respect for others.

Robert L. Joss
Dean, Stanford Graduate School of Business

March 3, 2005

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS—On March 2, Apply Yourself, the firm whose software is used by the Stanford Graduate School of Business to facilitate the application process, notified Stanford of a breach in the system that allowed applicants to hack into their own application files using instructions posted on the Internet. No Stanford MBA application decisions have yet been placed into the Apply Yourself system, so there was nothing to be seen by those attempting to gain access to the Stanford Business School files. The fall 2005 admission results for the Business School will be released on March 31, 2005, to all applicants. The breach apparently was an attempt by applicants to get advance and unauthorized information about the disposition of their own applications.

According to the Associated Press, an individual identified only as "brookbond" on the BusinessWeek online business school website hacked into his or her own Apply Yourself application account at Harvard Business School to view his or her application decision. This individual then posted instructions for doing so on BusinessWeek's website so that other applicants could do the same. After that, more individuals accessed their personal accounts at business schools including MIT, Dartmouth, and Stanford.

Derrick Bolton, director of MBA admissions at Stanford Business School, said that Apply Yourself notified him that attempts were made to view the disposition of 41 Stanford MBA Program applications. "Although the applicants entered Apply Yourself through a 'back door' in that system, none of our decisions have been posted there. Stanford evaluates all applications in the context of the pool and thus has not made decisions on our current applicants," he said. "Given the highly sensitive information applicants entrust to us, we have multiple internal controls to ensure security and integrity; one is that we do not post our admission decisions to Apply Yourself until immediately before all applicants are notified, on March 31 in this case."

"We do not condone the behavior of any applicant who accessed the Apply Yourself system through this back door," said Bolton.

Bolton said that Apply Yourself in formed schools that it had patched its system within hours of learning of the problem. Those who did hack into the system were able to view only their own decision page and could not view the confidential information of any other applicant. Apply Yourself has also confirmed that at Stanford only the Business School application system was affected.