Lily Belle Poling, Staff Photographer

A girl pretending to be an admitted student stayed in Saybrook College for at least two nights during and after Bulldog Days, Yale’s annual admitted student event.

The girl — who introduced herself as Leilani — posed as an admitted student from Florida. Students and student groups who interacted with Leilani during Bulldog Days said they were told by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions that she was not a registered Bulldog Days attendee. Two students told the News that the admissions office informed them that Leilani was admitted to Yale but that her offer of admission was rescinded prior to Bulldog Days.

Mark Dunn, the admissions office’s senior associate director for outreach and recruitment, declined to tell the News whether Leilani’s offer was rescinded.

The News could not independently confirm the girl’s name or reach her for comment with the contact information she provided to students on campus.

“It was so easy for her to lie. That’s scary to have someone like that in your suite,” Maggie Lo ’27, who hosted Leilani in her suite from last Tuesday to Friday, said. 

Lo said she offered Leilani a place to stay for Bulldog Days after finding her “looking very confused” in the Saybrook courtyard on Tuesday April 22, the second day of Bulldog Days.

According to Lo, Leilani said she arrived a day late to Bulldog Days and that she did not know whom she was supposed to be staying with. After attempting to contact the admissions office and the Saybrook College office last Tuesday afternoon on Leilani’s behalf, Lo decided to offer her a place to stay in her suite, which was already hosting two admitted students.

On Monday, Dunn confirmed to the News that his office was aware of “the situation involving a campus visitor who posed as an admitted student last week.” Dunn wrote that the admissions office knew “the visitor” tried to meet with undergraduate financial aid staff last Wednesday morning, but they did not know she “gained access to restricted undergraduate college spaces or that they were staying overnight with undergraduates until Friday morning,” after Lo reported Leilani’s stay to the Saybrook College dean. 

Dunn said the admissions office has been in contact with the Yale Police since his team found out about the deception.

Because last Tuesday was the final night of Bulldog Days, Lo and her suitemates only expected to host Leilani for a single night and said they did not initially mind taking her in. However, Leilani did not leave until Friday morning.

Lo and her suitemates recounted their increasing confusion at Leilani’s unusual activities until their eventual discovery of her deception.

By Wednesday, Lo assumed Leilani had left campus because she did not see her or check in with her that day, she told the News. Lo’s suitemates Katie May ’27 and Valentina Moreno ’27 said that they interacted with Leilani that day, as she packed her suitcase and left the suite. 

By Wednesday night, Lo’s suite thought Leilani had left campus, as none of them saw her before going to sleep around midnight. May, who woke up Thursday morning before 7 a.m., saw no signs in their suite’s common room that Leilani had slept there that night. Lo and her suitemates do not know exactly where Leilani slept Wednesday night.

On Thursday evening around 8 p.m., Lo said Leilani texted her to ask if she could sleep in the suite again because her flight home from Tweed New Haven Airport had been canceled. Leilani told Lo that her new flight would be leaving Friday morning, Lo told the News.

“So it made sense to me then, but it was a little odd. I was like ‘Why are you still here? I thought Bulldog Days were over on Wednesday.’ So this is Thursday night where I’m getting a little suspicious,” Lo said.

Regardless, Lo agreed to host Leilani another night and planned to meet her around 10 p.m. on Thursday at the Saybrook library to take her to her suite. Lo’s suitemates Abby Matsuyasu ’27 and Zoya Haq ’27, who is a reporter for the News, said they saw Leilani in their entryway before 10 p.m. and before Lo told her suite that Leilani would be staying another night, which left them both “confused,” Haq said.

“Then I was getting really weirded out because I told her she was supposed to stay in the library. I don’t know why she went up and down the entryway,” Lo said.

At this point, Lo and Moreno checked Tweed flight records and found out that no flights from Tweed Airport had been canceled last Wednesday or Thursday. The News confirmed that no departures from Tweed were canceled last Wednesday or Thursday.

Once Lo, her suitemates and Leilani were all back in their suite, they began asking Leilani some questions about herself and what she’d been doing on campus.

“She was very cagey and elusive and wouldn’t directly answer any questions,” Matsuyasu said. “She’d change the subject or kind of give a non-answer.”

Leilani told them she’d spent her time on campus meeting one-on-one with professors, Lo and her suitemates said. Kate Johnson ’27, another one of Lo’s suitemates, said she saw Leilani with Bulldog Days event flyers, which led her to believe that Leilani actively participated in programming for admitted students.

After this interaction, Lo and her suitemates felt nearly certain that Leilani was lying about being an admitted student. Lo said her suite continued to ask Leilani questions Thursday night but that Leilani consistently evaded answering directly and never admitted that she was not an admitted student.

According to Dunn, “the visitor” was not registered for Bulldog Days, was not assigned a host, did not check in with admissions staff and was not given an official Bulldog Days participant wristband.

Before Bulldog Days, Rural Students at Yale received a list of admitted students from rural areas from the admissions office, including Leilani, and sent them an email welcoming them to Bulldog Days and to Yale. However, RSAY was notified by the admissions office on April 19 to cease communication with Leilani because her acceptance to Yale was rescinded, Bella Amell ’27, RSAY chief of staff, told the News.

Although Leilani told Lo she planned to leave by 8 a.m. Friday morning to go to the airport, Matsuyasu said she found Leilani in the bathroom that morning around 8:30 a.m. At this point, Matsuyasu told Leilani that she knew she was an imposter and then asked her to leave. Since that exchange, Lo and her suitemates have not seen Leilani.

Once Leilani left, Lo alerted her college dean about the intrusion and was instructed to call the police if Leilani returned. Lo said that an admissions office employee later told her on the phone Friday morning that the visitor’s admission offer had been rescinded due to “fraudulent activities,” without elaborating.

Saybrook Dean Adam Haliburton wrote to the News that he “commends” the students in Saybrook’s 12-person suite for offering their common room “to a wayward stranger.” Haliburton wrote that he hopes the visitor “is now home and well.”

Since Friday, Lo has not received any further communications from the admissions office, she said.

Imposters have appeared at other universities, including at Stanford, where a man pretended to be a student and lived in multiple campus dorms for months.

Saybrook College is located at 242 Elm Street.