The university said Tuesday that it's providing admissions information to the Education Department as part of an investigation into whether it complies with civil rights law.
The case stems from a federal civil rights complaint filed in 2006 by Jian Li, a Chinese immigrant who grew up in Livingston.
Li said Princeton and other elite institutions rejected him, even though he had perfect SAT scores, was in the top 1 percent of his high school class and had earned other honors.
Li, who enrolled at Yale, claimed that Princeton has set a cap on how many highly qualified Asian students it admits - admitting less qualified applicants from other racial groups.
Earlier this year, the Education Department decided not just to look at Li's complaint, but to conduct a general review of whether Princeton is complying with federal civil rights regulations with regard to Asian applicants, said Jim Bradshaw, a department spokesman.
Department officials, according to Bradshaw, are specifically looking at admissions data for the class of 2010, which Li applied to join.
Li now goes to Harvard. He told The Wall Street Journal for Thursday newspapers that the expanded investigation is "great news for those opposed to the use of racial preferences in college admissions" and said he "had hoped from the start that the scope of the complaint would be much wider than my individual case."
Associated Press attempts to reach Li weren't immediately successful Wednesday.
Princeton isn't the only elite university in the country to face complaints that it makes it harder for Asian applicants to gain admission. In his book "The Price of Admission," Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Daniel Golden described the problem as widespread at top schools, and compared it to the way the Ivies handled Jewish applicants decades ago.
Princeton says that the year Li applied, 14 percent of the admitted class was Asian. The university insists no discrimination is taking place.
"We consider each applicant as an individual, taking many factors into account as we seek to enroll a class that is both excellent and diverse," said university spokeswoman Cass Cliatt.
