@epiphany – college athletes often quit their sport, for a variety of reasons, including injury. Or wanting to spend more time on school. Or just losing interest. It happens. When it happens in a low-profile sport it’s unlikely to be noted or questioned.
@Waiting2exhale
“I find this difficult to believe. Out of poverty to the upper middle class?”
I don’t. It happened to Michelle Obama and her brother. Compared to other kids at Princeton, they were poor. This kind of class shift happens to scholarship kids all the time. My son went to a charter school where the majority of the kids were lower-middle (or poor) black and Latino kids. The ones that went to Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc., are on their way to upper middle-class incomes.
There is another difference. If you donate $5 million to the university and get your child admitted when the likelihood of that child being admitted without the donation is almost nil, you can also get a nice tax deduction.
Nice!
@northwesty apparently the younger child of the man who bought the Harvard fencing coach’s house was on the roster until earlier this week (he’s a current sophomore), when he was removed from the website. One of the articles I read mentioned that.
I see much less of an issue with giving the school $5 million than giving the coach of X sport $1 million. Are both wrong? Yes, but one helps other students and the other is illegal and takes another hardworking student’s spot.
With regards to the California lawmakers proposals, I see those as political grandstanding. Making the SAT/ACT optional removes any slightly objective standard in college admissions. Standardized tests are a mixed bag, but eliminating them from use in admissions will do little good. It’s no more immoral to pay for a tutor for a test any more than it is for a class. Using GPA, EC’s, and essays will create a fully subjective admissions system that I believe is likely to increase biases in admissions toward middle class high-achieving applicants.
And with regards to college counselors, does anyone actually think that forcing them to register with the state will change much? These people make their living knowing how to play the system and are not idiots. I suspect that they will either adopt a different moniker or change their profile enough to go under the radar. These last-minute political soundbites don’t seem well thought out. The admissions system isn’t good, but I’m not sure what we can do other than hold rule-breakers accountable.
@GnocchiB – if the second kid was a legit fencer, why would he be scrubbed from the roster? The older brother is still listed.
Wondering what the second kid’s record looked like? Did he actually compete in matches?
The U Penn basketball player would have been on the roster, too, but the coach got fired (only because his teams weren’t winning enough, not for having “recruits” who were nowhere near the level that a kid without a rich parent needs to be to get recruited).
Being a decent athlete does not get you designated as a “recruit” for admissions advantage if you are just a random middle class kid. If it happens only because a parent made a large donation, then it is never okay in my book. (Even if it goes to buying new equipment for the team). But then again, I don’t think that a parent getting a $2.5 million tax deduction because the parent made a $5 million donation to buy his kid a seat in a university is okay, either. I realize some students might be helped – or maybe they also get a building named for them so they get free PR in addition to their big tax deduction and their child’s admittance. But the intention of the donation is not charitable – if it was charitable then the person would give it knowing that their child’s application would remain in the big pile and their child would only be admitted if his application stood out among those many thousands.
@northwesty I wondered that same thing about why he’s no longer on the roster. No idea about how he did before the Globe wrote the article exposing the info (and I know nothing at all about fencing TBH).
At least donate the $5 million for the building then a few years later they let his kid in… At least it’s not so obvious… Is it that tough being a thief?
@Waiting2exhale: “I find this difficult to believe. Out of poverty to the upper middle class? Difficult to think this could actually be.”
It happens. I’d said fairly regularly for those who actually go to an Ivy/equivalent. Both me and my best friend in college, while not coming from absolute poverty, were Pell Grant recipients and minorities to boot at an Ivy-equivalent. I’d say we’re both firmly upper-middle-class now. I’m not top 1% but he is.
@epiphany: “I actually think it’s kind of irresponsible for anyone – a parent, a student, a college – to claim that admissions to an elite academy translates to admissions to elite society.”
Upper-middle-class isn’t high society.
Before my daughter got accepted to Harvard we were middle class. Now that she has graduated we are still middle class. So far as I can tell having a Harvard kid in the family did not move our social standing a single inch.
Actually, @bluebayou, low 7 figures probably would have been enough to pretty much assure admission to an Ivy for an average excellent kid (or even average good kid) who’s academics were at least good enough to be an Ivy athlete. At Stanford, half a mil is enough for Development to throw their weight behind your application.
So, @MWolf, I agree. the numbers don’t have to be that high for developmental admits to be worthwhile. Say tuition is $50K/year, undergrad student body of 8K. Assume charges for R&B are at cost. Half the student body on fin aid with average aid being $50K. That means the school nets an average of $25K in tuition per student or $200M/year in tuition ($200M in fin aid; $160M in R&B if R&B is 20K/year).
Typically, 5% of a class are developmental admits, or 100 students in this case. If they simply averaged $2M in donations to buy their way in, that’s $200M. That’s the same as the net tuition amount the school takes in. Another way to look at it is that those 100 admits (400 total or 5% of the undergrad population) cover the fin aid for all 4000 students on fin aid.
Mind you, I still think it’s corruption, but it’s corruption for a good cause!
Happens all the time. I was born in the projects, and got out of the 'hood, worked my way thru the state school, as did my sibling. Able to send both of my kids to an OOS private.
Where do you get the information? I seriously doubt you can assure a Stanford admission with half a mil nowadays. According to disclosed emails in the Harvard lawsuit the numbers you speculated were way off.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harvard-admissions-trial/
Basically, the revealed internal emails at Harvard Admissions show that:
- If you donated a building (>>$10m) your kid is a sure admit.
- If you donated $8.7m the AOs would give your kid a boost.
- If you donated $1.1m you get a personalized tour of Harvard.
“Happens all the time. I was born in the projects, and got out of the 'hood, worked my way thru the state school, as did my sibling. Able to send both of my kids to an OOS private.”
My comment actually went to an assumed direct route to the upper middle class just by virtue of earning a degree from a Super Selective. Yes, a degree changes lives. I think we all know and can attest to that…
I guess I’m hearing in the referenced statement a blanket belief of that which I have seen happen for some, yes, but for those in my small circle who have come from ‘poverty,’ no. Of course, some people make career choices which may alter such a trajectory, and those I can think of probably made such choices.
@jzducol, that Stanford number was from a blog which I am not sure I am allowed to link to on CC.
It’s possible that that number is out of date.
However, as I showed in my example, with 5% of a class being developmental admits (which seems to be the average at Ivies and peers), the average doesn’t have to be that high to be a worthwhile strategy.
Presumably, donation size matters. Huge donor may be able to get an obvious underachiever in. Big but not huge donor may get a smaller bump like legacy, where a high stats but not superstar applicant has a reasonable chance of admission. Probably most of the 5% development admits are the latter.
@katliamom
I’m aware of all of that (your post 3600). That’s obvious.
@PurpleTitan It’s only corruption if it is not enshrined in the rules. Paying a fine for a speeding ticket is not corruption, paying off an officer so that they don’t give you a ticket is. The rules of selective colleges include that rule that a certain number of slots are given to the children of people who donate a very large amount of money to the college.
Regarding the number of development admits. There are not many development admits because there are so few kids who are wealthy enough to be development admits.
I assume that the development donors are from the top 0.1% or richer. About 10% of these go to Ivy +, and another 25% go to other “elites”. There are about 2,000 or fewer kids who belong to families of the 0.1% who are entering colleges this year. 10% of those are 200, and 25% are 500. That is about 19-20 students on average who enter each of the Ivy+ colleges every year, and an average of 8 to every “elite” colleges out there. Ivies typically have 1,500-2,000 students in their incoming classes, so we are talking about 1.3% at most of the students entering an Ivy + colleges are from the top 0.1%. There are even fewer at many of the other “elite” colleges
However, even the top 0.1% aren’t generally rich enough to donate $5 million because they are “only” making about $4 million a year. It’s the top 0.01%, who are making $30 million a year. Even if they are attending only the Ivy+ colleges, that’s again only 19-20 a year. However, they don’t, since many will want to go to their parent’s alma mater which could be WashU, Vanderbilt, Wake forest, or any of the places where the majority of the kids attending are very wealthy, and which are considered “elite”. So maybe 5 per elite college per year.
But I definitely overestimated the number of kids in the 1%, since the families of the 1% generally have far fewer kids per family than average, so the kids of the top 1% are likely no more than 0.8% or fewer of the kids entering college now, so we’re likely only talking about closer to 1,600 kids in the top 0.1%, and 160 kids of possible development admits. Spread across all the elites, we’re talking maybe 2 or 3 a year for any given college, in a good year.
So development admits have a negligible affect on the chances of a"unhooked" to be accepted, while making it much easier for the accepted kids to afford to attend.