*This article appeared in the 2009 joke issue.
In a surprise move, University officials announced that former Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson will return to Penn as the "Admissions Czar" to act as a consultant to Admissions Dean Eric Furda.
This announcement came as a result of the increased acceptance rate for the class of 2013.
University spokeswoman Lori Doyle said the change had been in the works for several weeks but was confirmed when the regular decision data was released last week.
"The outrageous rise in acceptance rate left us no choice," she said.
"Getting in here was a piece of cake this year. If it wasn't for the Nursing school, Penn would seem about as competitive as Penn State," she said.
Penn accepted 17.1 percent of applicants this year, compared to 16.4 percent last April. Other Ivy League schools, by contrast, had significantly lower admissions rates. Harvard accepted only 7 percent of its applicants this year.
"We don't want people to aim for Princeton and think of Penn as their safety," Doyle explained.
Penn President Amy Gutmann was equally concerned.
"Even Brown was more competitive than Penn this year," she said, "and Brown's hardly even an Ivy."
When asked for his response to Stetson's appointment, Furda was devastated.
"Today, my predecessor was rehired and I have to work with him," he said. "FML."
"Not only did he think that accepting more people was a great idea, but he actually went to Penn. How can Penn hire his predecessor to work with him? Is that even possible?" asked his secretary, Angela Sweeney.
Stetson, is returning to Penn after an abrupt and suspicious departure in 2007.
Stetson explains now that he "just needed a vacation before coming back with renewed strength."
"I'm going to bring back the golden days of Penn admissions," he said. "We're going to show the world that being a pure Quaker is where it's at."
Class of 2014 applicants are already getting nervous.
"OMFG, even though I'm a legacy, I'm freaking out about the new dean making Penn as competitive as Harvard, Yale and Princeton," Dalton junior Beth Lawrence wrote on college-admissions Web site College Confidential.
Gutmann said she has issued an official "full pardon" to Stetson for his unexpected departure.
Nonetheless, The Daily Pennsylvanian will continue its ongoing investigation on the abrupt departure of Stetson. Until we die.
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