For as long as people have griped about college admissions, one of the biggest complaints has been that it is a black box — applications go in, acceptances and rejections come out, but nobody can see what happens inside.

It turns out the box has a big hole in it.

Under a federal law that has been on the books for years, some Stanford students have asked the university for copies of their admission records, and the university says it has no choice but to comply, within 45 days. That means the written assessments that admissions officers gave of applicants, the numerical scores those officers assigned them on a range of factors and, in some cases, even the recommendation letters written by their high school teachers and counselors will all be turned over to the students, who can do what they choose with them.

On Thursday night, a few of the Stanford students made their findings public (though not their admission records), and urged others to follow their lead. The students say their actions have prompted hundreds of others at Stanford to apply for their records, and they hope it will catch on at other colleges.

The project is the brainchild of a group of students who run an anonymous newsletter, the Fountain Hopper, some of whom discussed the matter on the condition of anonymity, saying they did not want Stanford to know exactly who was behind the effort.