Would be interested to see what people think of the following article. Especially considering we’ve had many previous threads discussing Ivy/elite private college admissions and legacy/developmental admissions and the academic bona-fides of the beneficiaries:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/18/jared-kushner-harvard-donald-trump-son-in-law
Especially considering one excerpt from admins at Kusher’s HS in the article questions his qualifications/merits for admission:
The only thing that surprises me is that $2.5 million was enough in 1999. I would have guessed more. I’ve never actually worked with a development case.
My guess is that $2.5m is still in the ballpark today for colleges with an ~11% admit rate, which is what Harvard’s was in 1999.
Maybe we need a whole thread to call out “embarrassing admittances” to tippy-top colleges. For all the CC lecturing to HS kids about how hard but ultimately ‘rational’ the admissions process is, each school has some Jared Kushners.
From the college’s point of view, it can be “rational” to admit an otherwise easily-rejected student who pays much more “tuition” than what the college lists as its list price (i.e. huge donation).
Was the quote from an administrator at his former HS substantiated? How credible was this unnamed source? Beware of fake news.
It is common knowledge that many development cases have been accepted to top schools. How else would they be able to provide better facilities? Stanford, where Chelsea Clinton attended has been known to take many development cases, a few of whom I personally know, that Harvard rejected.
If this is news to you then you are naive.
Exactly. There is nothing to see here; ‘move along’. H does similar admission selections for helmet sports (football and hockey), but is now including basketball.
Once he was admitted, he was held to the same grading and graduation standards as any other Harvard admit.
Not sure I think this is news worthy.
University of Chicago too
Harvard accepts a few kids from our school each year, and we know a few current students. The consensus is that Harvard is very lenient on grading, to the point that it is considerably easier than our high school. The same is not said for students that attend say MIT or Chicago.
In other words, the difficult part of Harvard is admission, not grades.
Judging by past conversations I’ve had with Harvard College alums…especially HS classmate friends, they felt the admissions intensity was far greater than the difficulty/rigor of academics they experienced once they matriculated. And this includes classmates who were STEM/pre-med majors who graduated/went on to grad/med school.
And admittedly, it may be mindboggling to some that the article cited the figure of 90% of Kusher’s class graduating with honors. Several of the Harvard College alums I’ve known have said so many students in each graduating class graduate with honors that it’s considered a bit of a joke among some of them.
That was the experience of every HS classmate I knew who attended and graduated from Harvard College.
It appears that Harvard has changed the limit on the percentage of honors graduates since then. Now, “only” up to 50% of the graduating class can get cum laude (including summa and magna) in field, and “only” 10% can get cum laude for overall record. So now, “only” at most 60% of Harvard graduates can get some kind of honors.
http://handbook.fas.harvard.edu/book/requirements-honors-degrees
“From the college’s point of view, it can be “rational” to admit an otherwise easily-rejected student who pays much more “tuition” than what the college lists as its list price (i.e. huge donation).”
Harvard’s been known to do this. The Z list and all. Not a fan of Kushner but he’s not the first nor will he be the last getting in on wealth, name, or connections (including at least a president or two to Ivies). However, I’d argue that institutions with enormous endowments the size of Harvard’s and tex exempt status should hold themselves to a higher standard.
Jared Kushner is only 35 years old. Harvard’s been rolling in around in big money for so long that I’m surprised they did this so recently. But, I guess that’s how they keep themselves rolling around in money. Too bad.
In an article I saw somewhere, I read that Kushner’s father donated close to $100 million to various schools. Harvard had plenty reason to think the 2.5 million for sonny would be just the downpayment.
As for grades… I think it was here on CC that someone quoted a Yale grad saying, “As are hard to get at Yale; Cs are even harder.” I bet that counts for Harvard, too.
The Kushner story comes from the 2006 book, The Price of Admission.
https://www.amazon.com/Price-Admission-Americas-Colleges-Outside/dp/1400097975
If it’s fake, it’s a ten year old fake.
I think I read that book. Did it start with a chapter called “The Tennessee Waltz” about how Gore’s son and, oh goodness, some other politician’s son were also “less than stellar” but still got Ivy admits? (although the Gore daughters were quite capable).
Tale as old as time
http://www.salon.com/2011/05/03/donald_trump_wharton/
That was me, quoting my nephew.
“an otherwise easily-rejected student”
They’re all easily rejected. That’s what makes this so gray. Unless we’re actually talking about a Malala application, most of the class is not distinguishable from students at other elite schools. And Harvard knows that to a great degree, it doesn’t matter. Whatever almost-ran student got denied as a result of this admission went to Dartmouth or Brown or Chicago and is having a fantastic life and never thinks about Harvard.