I'm also not clear why GPA/SAT/ACT are the singular measure of fairness of admissions at, of all schools.. NYU, which is emphatically NOT a STEM school.

17% of kids graduate with Visual & Performing Arts degrees at NYU. What relevance do test scores have for their admissions vs a portfolio of their work/performances?

Math, Engineering and CS are under 20% of enrollees.

NYU applicant students on reddit are saying they searched and found their data, apparently despite the hacker's claim, not all identifying information has been deleted.

So in addition to a admissions scandal, this is also a rather critical info breach.

It could have made up entries added to authentic ones, but if you know someone who has applied to NYU in the past few decades you can easily verify its authenticity by asking if their data is accurate. (Names were supposed to be redacted by the hacker but they missed a column in one of the CSVs)