<p>Thanks Soozie, I didn’t mean to mislead people and make anyone think that many MT schools might require the PROFILE. </p>
<p>I was comparing selective colleges. BU and CMU require the PROFILE and I was surprised that NYU didn’t.</p>
<p>well, I won’t accuse NYU of sending more promotional material than other colleges! Some that promoted themselves as the most concerned about environmental sustainability were, ironically, among the worst offenders!</p>
<p>Anyway, more ironies for me – my mom recently cleaned out a closet and found lots of stuff from my college days. Turns out that not only were they loyal parent donors, but they were on the parent donor fund committee!! Guess I’m not really following in their footsteps here, at least not yet.</p>
<p>Here’s how I look at it. On the one hand, you could say they should wait until your kid graduates to ask for donations. But on the other hand, private universities need to raise funds for their endowments and for scholarships and other things as tuition alone doesn’t meet all their expenses. Parents are good people to ask as they have a connection to the university and some caring about it. Many parents cannot donate above and beyond tuition while their kids are enrolled and some can’t even after that as they are still paying off loans for the tuition. But some parents can afford it. These fundraising campaigns and events do work or the colleges would not go to the trouble to do them. People who make charitable contributions have choices as to where they will donate and for many, they feel an affinity to either their alma mater or their kids’ colleges. It is entirely understandable, in my view, for colleges to tap this group of people to make donations. It is the parents’ choice whether or not to donate or to attend a fundraising event. But those who attend the university benefit from these donations since it partly funds the schools beyond the tuition payments. And some, like my kids, also benefit from scholarships. I get solicitations almost every day on my phone and by mail for all sorts of things. Some may prefer to donate to a college that their kids attend rather than some other organization that hits them up. </p>
<p>In sum, I understand why private colleges fundraise, why they solicit parents as one source of interested parties, and also am grateful to those who can and do donate.</p>
<p>Our recently solicitation from NYU was from the Parents Council. I was very impressed with the Matching Gifts info on the website. It linked us directly to my hubby’s company page and it’s gift ratio. We discovered it was 3:1 for donations under $500. So theoretically, we could give NYU $25 and his company would match $75. We were a little more generous than that, but the fact remains that you could give a guilt free $25 knowing you are contributing $100 to NYU in the end. The other thing I liked about the NYU site is that they linked us to a pdf file for our company matching gift form. So I didn’t have to send hubby down to the office’s Human Resources Department looking for official forms–a task that would have delayed the donation. With downloaded form in hand, we had the donation mailed off in a flash. And best of all, you can tell the Parents Counsel to earmark the contribution for Tisch School of the Arts specifically. </p>
<p>Of course, we are fortunate to have an employer with a matching gift program. It’s worth checking into with your own places of employment. Don’t forget that donations are tax deductible!</p>
<p>I would love to have attended the Gala! Too pricey for us but it sounded very cool.</p>