<p>Would a $1 million dollar donation get a person into a top 10-20 business school?
-Wealthy family (20-30 million dollars in net worth, 2-3 million dollar annual income) (they doing this in tax deduction way)
-prestigious prep school
-a "B" student
-1800 SAT I, SAT IIs Math I (650) World History (650)
-40 hours of community service</p>
<p>Can this kid get into a top 10-20 business school? (His parents are not alumni)</p>
<p>(And I am not this person, I have a friend who is in similar circumstance right now, just curious about the outcome)</p>
<p>Are you asking about an undergad college that has a top 10-20 undergrad business school? Or, are you talking about a school that has a top 20 b-school for MBA? </p>
<p>There are schools with top 20 undergrad B schools that aren’t that hard to get into.</p>
<p>The people that get in, b/c of wealth, usually donate enough money to get a building named after them, i highly doubt a one time donation of 1M will make a difference</p>
<p>lol im confused about this… how would someone even go about mentioning the donation? Is there a space on the app? Or do you just like attach a sticky note with “btw, I donated $1 million”?</p>
<p>I’m surprised at the answers so far. My two cents:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Yes, a sizable donation can get you into any school if you have the ability to perform at the level required to complete the program of study and not drag the class down. A sizable donation like the one contemplated here is a legitimate hook.</p></li>
<li><p>Is $1MM enough? Maybe. I expect that the school would prefer a significant up front donation and a continuing commitment to support the school at a certain level. A family with an annual income of $2-3MM can divert a significant percentage of its annual charitable giving to the school so an up front $1MM with a pledge to give $100K a year would go a long way.</p></li>
<li><p>How you go about doing this: The donor works with the development office and private assurances are given. If it’s not going to work, the school has every reason to be honest and politely decline the offer. It is not mentioned on the application, it’s just taken care of. </p></li>
<li><p>Schools do this because they know that these gifts are the gifts that keep on giving for decades and eventually by estates of thankful donors.</p></li>
<li><p>Let’s also remember that this student comes from a prestigious prep school so a B average might be viewed more favorably than from a public school (yes, I see the SAT scores) and also the school might be able to find out if this family has given significant financial support to the prep school, thus providing some indication of the genuineness of the commitment to support the college.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I don’t like that the success of your parents might be helping you get into a better college. If you dont have the grades, scores, etc to get in, I dont think you should be going to this school -.-</p>
<p>Someone above asked how the $$ and application would work… well the applicant would be labeled a development case, the development office would contact the parents, verify the contribution (and probably wait until the check cleared ;)) before admissions would stamp a Yes on that file.</p>
<p>For a tip top school, probably another 0 would need to be added to the check amount. As noted above, they would prefer a building, which would be much more than a million. In these lean times though, who knows?</p>