Penn admissions dean quits abruptly

The University of Pennsylvania's powerful dean of admissions abruptly resigned yesterday, and neither he nor the university explained why he was leaving, effective immediately.

Lee Stetson, 65, had been Penn's chief gatekeeper for nearly 30 years and was often credited with helping the university move aggressively up the ranks of the nation's best schools.

Stetson had told the Daily Pennsylvanian earlier this summer that he would retire in a year, but in a terse statement released this week announced: "I now recognize that it is in the university's, and my own best interest, to step down immediately, before the commencement of the fall semester."

Penn officials were unusually tight-lipped about the departure. Generally, when long-serving and high-profile administrators and professors retire from the Ivy League school in University City, there is no shortage of official praise and well-wishes.

That was not the case for Stetson.

University leaders repeatedly declined to comment, and released only a memorandum distributed to senior Penn officials on Wednesday that curtly noted Stetson's departure.

"We are writing to inform you that we have accepted the resignation of Lee Stetson as dean of admissions, effective immediately," read the memo, sent by Penn president Amy Gutmann and provost Ron Daniels.

The memo made no other mention of Stetson.

Stetson could not be reached for comment yesterday. He did not return an e-mail or phone messages left at his former office and with his daughter, Lindsey. She said he was traveling.

Under Stetson's leadership in the admissions office, Penn became one of the nation's most selective schools, turning down 84 percent of this year's applicants. The average Penn freshmen now boasts a 2137 SAT score (on a 2400 scale) and is in the 98th percentile of his or her high school class, a far more academically accomplished bunch than Penn was admitting when Stetson took over the admissions office in 1978.

Penn's student body also has grown more diverse during Stetson's tenure. Penn admitted 29 international students and 267 minority students in 1978. The most recent class includes 318 international students and 900 minority students. Penn enrolls about 10,000 undergraduates.

Stetson has been replaced by interim dean of admissions Eric Kaplan, a Penn administrator who previously was dean of admissions and financial aid at Lehigh University.