<p>"A couple from Hong Kong has sued a U.S.-based college admissions consultant for failing to get their two sons into an Ivy League university as he had allegedly promised." ...</p>
<p>Hong</a> Kong Couple Sues Over Sons' Harvard Rejection - ABC News</p>
<p>A fool and his money…</p>
<p>Would $2,000,000 straight to a school have put him in the “development” category?</p>
<p>$2-million straight to the school will not get someone admission at Harvard. That’s another urban myth.</p>
<p>The school has an endowment over $30-billion, so $2-million won’t get Harvard jumping out of windows.</p>
<p>They could easily fill the school up with well-qualified students without offering any financial aid; in fact, they probably could fill the school up with well-qualified students at $100,000 per year.</p>
<p>Just curious where the development line might fall since $2 million is definitely a lot of money, even if not compared to the endowment</p>
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<p>You may be right, as I don’t know exactly where the development line falls. But it’s kind of a fallacy to say “look the endowment is a really big number compared to $2 million.” It’s not as though Harvard can play around with the money in its endowment. </p>
<p>Harvard’s total gifts received in FY2011 was $639 million. So yes $2 million is still less than 1 percent of all the donations received but I wouldn’t say that’s a negligible contribution from a single person given the sheer number of alumni targeted for donation.</p>
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<p>It sounds like they didn’t donate the 2 million directly to the school, though. They gave it to the admissions consultant, who invested in secretly. I’m not sure I get what he did with the money. </p>
<p>Anyway, the only development candidates I hear about are the sons of VIPs, so it’s hard to know whether a link to celebrity or power is another requirement. It’s not a very transparent process. </p>
<p>From what I know, Al Gore donated half a million to Harvard, and like all of his kids went to Harvard. At least one of them, Al Gore III, was a terrible student and got in trouble for smoking pot in the school cafeteria. </p>
<p>There are also other people who aren’t as famous but just happen to be rich, Ivanka Trump’s husband for instance, who were probably development candidates, but there’s no way to know how much was donated.</p>
<p>pretty sure he was a great student as well. since top grades and scores are as easily rejected as accepted (more easily in fact), a nice pledge could only help…the few development gifts i know of were either huge and from legacies or from relatively qualified applicants buying insurance --or both!!</p>
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<p>Sure.</p>
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<p>pretty sure these rules don’t apply to the sons and daughters of the vice president.</p>
<p>Don’t forget. Al Gore is himself an alum, so in addition to the ‘politician + celebrity’ part, there’s also the legacy factor.</p>