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I agree. The shortcut Zimny promised what that he knew the right person(s) on the Harvard admissions committee who for 2+mil would push through the Chows application. I dont think you can sue someone for failing to commit a crime on your behave.</p>
<p>Giving $50 mil to a grifter, or a department chairman, and having him give $45 to Harvard might get you very close indeed. All you’re saying, really, is that they chose the wrong middleman. Again, lack of market research on their part. Or, perhaps, they did know the going rate (say $50 mil), couldn’t afford it, and so thought they’d take a chance.</p>
<p>^^^ Or they did know the market rate and thought they were getting a once-in-a-lifetime deal!</p>
<p>Each of those schools has a price. D2’s consultant did ask us if we were in the position of giving a substantial contribution. If so, he would help us draft a letter to the school(s), but the contribution would be directly to the school not through a middle man. I told the consultant, “No, they should be lucky to have my kid.”</p>
<p>I agree with GMTplus7 - anyone who could afford 2.5 mill is not going to send his kid to a local school.</p>
<p>Most wealthy HKGers send their kids to international schools, no different than the LatAm country we lived in. Those parents were all sophisticated consumers.</p>
<p>" The ‘shortcut’ Zimny promised what that he knew the right person(s) on the Harvard admissions committee who for 2+mil would push through the Chow’s application. I don’t think you can sue someone for failing to commit a crime on your behave."</p>
<p>What was the crime? Talking to an admissions officer? Even giving him/her money? (It’s a private institution Quid pro quos happen all the time.) You might consider it unethical (I don’t - I assume parents of the required bucks spread them around all the time to ensure the necessary result, only difference here being the amount is too small). But crime?</p>
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<p>Sure. But if you were already sending your kid to Eton or another well known English public school, you could reasonably expect that they did in fact know how to do it right.</p>
<p>The Chows were paying to send their kids to well-connected US prep schools that get lots of kids into Ivies and other top schools, and then not taking advantage of the expertise they were paying for.</p>
<p>Or perhaps the GCs at their sons’ schools told them that they would NOT be getting into H, so they decided that greasing a few palms was the way to go.</p>
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<p>I’m thinking you haven’t accounted for many recent Mainlander immigrants who were self-made/corruption made millionaires who don’t have a lot of sophistication/education*…especially if they came of age during or just after the Chinese Cultural Revolution(1966-1976). </p>
<p>Moreover, the Chinese education system in Hong Kong wasn’t just for the poor local kids. Plenty of well-off families who don’t want their kids to become “Too British” or otherwise want their kids to attend a Chinese speaking universities in Hong Kong, ROC, or nowadays…Mainland China have also sent their kids to the Chinese schools. </p>
<p>The latter part is very understandable as my father had a college classmate at his ROC(Taiwan) university who attended English schools in Malaysia. Let’s just say that classmate had a miserable first year as he came in with practically no Mandarin Chinese proficiency whatsoever.** </p>
<p>Then again, his classmate’s parents felt it was far better than paying to attend what they felt were academically inferior universities in Malaysia and Hong Kong…a common perception among overseas Chinese in Asia during the '50s and '60s. Especially considering he failed to gain admission to any British/US universities the parents were willing to pay for. </p>
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<li>Knew of several children of such folks who were lucky enough to gain undergrad admission to US universities and yet, acted in such ways most Chinese grad students on the same campus regarded them as rich, but embarrassingly dull uncultivated rubes.</li>
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<p>** While getting into my dad’s university required exceedingly high national college exam scores for domestic applicants, overseas Chinese applicants took a different easier exam. In short, gaining admission to schools in the ROC or nowadays, Mainland China is far easier as an overseas Chinese admit than as an indigenous applicant. A reason why some wealthy Chinese families relocate abroad during their kids’ adolescence. Even so…it’s still more arduous than the US college admissions process.</p>
<p>Cobrat - you are giving information from the 50-60s, it is a completely different world now now. You really do seem to stuck in a time warp. You are over 40 and your college or high school experience really has no relevance any more.</p>
<p>I think he’s a little younger than that, Oldfort, but yours and Pizzagirl’s points still stand.</p>
<p>Cobrat said he was in college in the 90s. I was in college in the 80s. I am over 50 and I have grown kids. Ok, so he is in his late 30s.</p>
<p>I’ve been saying the same thing as you are for a while now. It doesn’t sink in.</p>
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<p>The part about the possibility the Chows are one of those recent Mainlander immigrants who may have been self-made and lacked sophistication/education is actually very recent…probably within the last 20 years or less. There weren’t many ways for Mainlanders to even start their own private businesses or corrupt their way as government officials/hanger-ons into millionaire+ status until the '90s at the very earliest. The level of national wealth and political environment before that period was such that the mere notion was little more than a loopy pipe dream. </p>
<p>It is this group…especially those who have little/no education and may harbor concerns their kids may become “Too British/Westernized” or lose their Chinese language proficiency may prompt them to prefer sending their kids to Chinese schools over English ones…especially if they’ve relocated for the express purposes/possibility of gaining Overseas Chinese status for easier Mainland Chinese university access.</p>
<p>Also, the easier undergrad admission process for Overseas Chinese still applies to this very day for Chinese universities on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. </p>
<p>One classmate from my HS graduating class used it to gain admission to National Taiwan University’s Engineering school and there’s been an increasing trend of wealthy Mainland parents relocating their families abroad during their kids’ adolescence within the last decade. A phenomenon which has been practiced for decades longer by wealthy ROC parents who were trying to substantially ease their kids’ path towards National Taiwan University and other topflight colleges in the ROC. </p>
<p>Even then, I personally think it’s much easier to apply via the US system as there’s still a far greater possibility you end up getting admitted nowhere on that “easier exam”.</p>
<p>I did some googling, and it would appear that the Chow’s business in HK dates back at least to 1985.</p>
<p>I really would love to know where their sons ended up going to college. :)</p>
<p>So where are these kids in college? And stupid me…what is BB and N?</p>
<p>These parents were not subsistence farmers with smart kids. They were multimillionaires who thought money could buy them anything.</p>
<p>Where IS the $2 million plus if it didn’t get donated?</p>
<p>cobrat - what the heck are you talking about? Chows sent their son to a boarding school in the US so he could go to a top tier college in the US. They didn’t locate to the US, and they had no intention of sending their son to a college in Taiwan! Who is on first?!</p>
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<p>There are also plenty of unsophisticated Hong Kong businesspeople who are great at making money and yet, ignorant of other matters…like many business folks here in the states. </p>
<p>The Chows’ actions actually fit the very negative Chinese Confucian-based stereotype of a merchant/businessperson to a T. </p>
<p>The scholarly/literati side of my family are probably ROTFLOLing in glee while the business/engineering executive side of my family are cringing and dreading being associated with the Chows…especially considering some of them have business connections with Hong Kong business oriented families. And that came on top of recent news about the jackass Hong Kong billionaire who decided to offer $65 million to potential male suitors to marry a daughter who’s already married to another woman.</p>
<p>Buckingham Browne & Nichols.</p>
<p>Yeah, the Chows are not sitting in a one room apt in HK subsisting on ramen noodles because they spent their life savings on prep school tuition and bribes.</p>
<p>“what is BB and N?”</p>
<p>Buckingham, Browne and Nichols, a private day school in Cambridge MA. The school send an average of 6 or 7 kids out of a class of 125 to Harvard each year and many more to other elite schools.</p>
<p>[Life</a> After BB&N | Buckingham Browne & Nichols, a coeducational day school in Cambridge, Massachusetts](<a href=“http://www.bbns.org/admission/life-after]Life”>http://www.bbns.org/admission/life-after)</p>
<p>“Where IS the $2 million plus if it didn’t get donated?”</p>
<p>Zimney was supposed to be investing it and using the proceeds to make strategic donations.</p>
<p>I know he was supposed to be investing it. So…where is it!</p>
<p>These two top prep school kids are hopefully in college. And for their sakes, I hope they earned their admissions on their own merits. </p>
<p>The family was smart enough to get their kids into two top prep schools, but didn’t know ANYTHING about college admissions? Sorry…I don’t believe it.</p>
<p>Do I think they might have been ripped off? Sure. Do I think they had no idea how college admissions work in this country…unlikely in my opinion.</p>