<p>An older friend of mine claims that he can pay his way into Harvard Med with that amount. Is there any truth to this assertion?</p>
<p>No, development will only help with already qualified applicants. It is med school, so your friend is going to need some solid grades. Although he can help his chances, he can’t guarantee himself admission.</p>
<p>As a donation no.</p>
<p>Four years’ tuition & fees, for one student, is going to cost half that. Compared to the annual budget of HMS, $500,000 is going to be essentially imperceptible.</p>
<p>Five million might get noticed, though.</p>
<p>I’m a bit Jaded but $500K and average stats just might do it. That amount could put two deserving students through on full scholarship. Besides only admissions is being sold not the degree. It has to be worked for.</p>
<p>^ if you think 500K is going to make any ripples with HMS admissions, I wouldn’t say you’re jaded - I’d say you’re naive.</p>
<p>^Ha! Now who’s being Na</p>
<p>500K wouldn’t do anything for Undergrad It’d certainly not do anything for HMS. Soso you’re off. </p>
<p>500M? that’s another story. But why would anyone want to spend that kind of money to be an MD at H over another school? The only advantage is that many academics come from HMS. And if this person is mediocre, he/she won’t be one anyways.</p>
<p>Having a top five Med school degree is relatively worthless for a majority of the profession.</p>
<p>I’m not even certain that $5M would do it at the undergraduate level anymore. There is probably a number that could work at the medical school, but it would have to have eight digits left of the decimal point. With about 2,000 undergraduates being accepted, there’s always room to slip in one more. There are far fewer medical school slots, so that can’t happen without putting a lot of noses out of joint. And the person would have to be a very good candidate in any event. The argument “A second-rate student can kill people” is a very powerful one.</p>
<p>From a 2012 article by Ron Unz regarding Harvard’s undergraduate admissions:</p>
<p>"The figure is said to be $5 million these days for an applicant who is reasonably competitive and $10 million for one who is not. Daniel Golden’s The Price of Admission provides a specific example which tends to generally confirm this disturbing belief.</p>
<p>But if such claims are true, then Harvard is following an absurd policy, selling off its good name and reputation for just pennies on the dollar, not least because the sums involved represent merely a day or two of its regular endowment income."</p>
<p>Isn’t there always a bit of the end justifies the means? All a big donation really does is buy a chance. A chance that will likely go down the drain when the donor flunks out. BTW Sorry no refunds. Anyway the donation will pay for the truly qualified to attend a school that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford.</p>
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<p>But 500k isn’t a big donation. Look at it this way - HMS endowment is something like 3B - so to put a 500K gift in perspective, if you are running a school with a 300K endowment, it’s like someone slipping you 50 bucks to buy their way in the door.</p>
<p>Sosomenza - you’re very naive. $500,000 is a drop in the bucket to a school of this nature. </p>
<p>And if a family has the kind of money where $5,000,000 is pocket change enough that they can spend it the way you and I might spend $5 at Starbucks, then they don’t NEED to have their sons / daughters hack away at med school for a living, Harvard or otherwise. Heck of a lot easier ways to stay wealthy than by attending medical school and becoming a doctor.</p>
<p>“HMS endowment is something like 3B”</p>
<p>In 2011, Harvard’s endowment was about $32 billion.</p>
<p>^ That endowment figure is broken into several pools. Law, Medicine, Business, etc. each has its own chunk of the endowment. I believe the HMS portion is about 3 billion.</p>
<p>“I believe the HMS portion is about 3 billion.”</p>
<p>I hadn’t given thought to how they might allot the endowment. Learn something new everyday. Thanks.</p>
<p>The fastest–and I mean fastest–way to get to the circular bin is to mention a donation whilst applying-- even if you were header for a Lasker, your application would be radioactive. </p>
<p>No joke. I’d hope no admission person is lurking and can place screen-name and real name together, if I were you…</p>
<p>This is just distasteful.</p>
<p>Never, now $501,000 is a different story. </p>
<p>–YungGuap</p>
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<p>New York Times, 05/11/2013
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/education/on-the-waiting-list-some-college-applicants-try-a-little-dazzle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/education/on-the-waiting-list-some-college-applicants-try-a-little-dazzle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&</a></p>
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<p>As the punchline to an old, old joke goes: We have already established what you are, and now we are negotiating price.</p>