How much influence can a donor recommendation have..

milee30
Sun, 09 Dec 2018 22:40:58 +0000

"To that end, if I was running the college, I would make any request by this guy a top priority. Tell him no on something and potentially piss him off? "

This donor doesn’t even know your son, though, so why would he be pissed off if your son isn’t admitted? I own my own business and prior to that was involved in management in large corporations, so understand the idea of quid pro quo, but I’m failing to see the strength of the connection here. Unless there’s more to the story, you have a client who is doing something “nice” for you by putting in a word, but he has no personal stake here. Your son’s app is likely to get an extra read and if your son consents, the courtesy of the AO keeping the donor in the loop on the decision. But if the decision is, “we gave this application special consideration; unfortunately at this point in time we are unable to offer admission” it’s really of no impact to the donor at all. Donor did his part - put in a word - but has no personal interest in a positive outcome and no reason to be upset if your son’s app isn’t strong enough to make it in. Surely the donor is proud of the strength of this college’s student body and will understand if a random kid he never met just doesn’t have the required stats. Do you really think the donor would be so angry he’d change his will over something like this? Unless you’re a defense attorney that has literally saved this donor from a death penalty conviction, I think you are waaaaaay overestimating how much he cares about whether your son is actually admitted. Fifty years ago, this sort of thing probably carried more weight, but now… I think you’re overestimating both the level of influence and the investment the donor would have.