College Admissions Sites Breached

Sloan School Dean Richard Schmalensee likened it to an applicant using the keys to the admissions office to enter at night and see how his or her application fared.

"It seemed to us you would have to have pretty bad judgment or pretty bad ethics not to know you were doing something wrong," Schmalensee said. "If you don't realize you shouldn't do that, something's off.

"Our mission statement talks about principled, innovative leaders, and we take the principled part seriously," he said.

Harvard's Clark called the behavior "unethical at best -- a serious breach of trust that cannot be countered by rationalization."

A spokesman from ApplyYourself Inc., the administrator of the online application system, wasn't immediately available for comment, but the company has said applicants could access only their own admissions records.

Edward F. Gehringer, a professor who teaches computer ethics at North Carolina State University, said anyone who allowed the information to be accessed early is partly at fault.

But he said he considered it a "hack" because applicants accessed a page the schools didn't want them to see, and they did it surreptitiously, without consulting the schools.

"I don't think there has to be malicious intent," he said.